Auditor tactics in negotiations: a research note

Abstract

This study provides a broad set of tactics identified and used by mediation experts widely cited in the psychology literature. Seven auditing partners are provided with this broad list of tactics and asked to apply these tactics to two examples of an audit judgment setting. Another group of auditors consisting of 11 partners and 11 managers identify the degree of importance they plan to place on these 38 adapted tactics in the same audit judgment setting. Factor analysis is used to group the tactics into dimensions and it is found that there are four underlying factors. These are contending (forcing/asserting), compromising, problem solving and accommodating. The 22 auditors also manually sort the tactics into groups of homogeneous tactics, and cluster analysis indicates four factors of appealing to authority, forcing/asserting, context setting and facilitating. These groupings from the factor analysis and auditors’ sorting are broadly consistent with previous research. Little difference is observed between partners and managers’ assessment of the importance of the tactics, while auditors with formal negotiation training place less emphasis on compromising tactics than those without training.