How internal auditors influence managers: presentation skills are as important as numbers.

A common assumption is that internal auditors need only to use numbers and relevant accounting information to support their position. However, a new study shows that just as important is how the auditors present themselves and their accounting information.

The study won the "Outstanding Emerging Scholars Award" at the American Accounting Association's Accounting Behavior & Organizations Research Conference. The study of how internal auditors influence managers' accounting judgments was conducted by Prof. Kirsten Fanning at the Villanova School of Business with her co-author Prof. David Piercey at the University of Massachusetts. Professors Fanning and Piercey recruited 133 managers and other business professionals enrolled in a professional executive training program as participants in the study and had them all read case information as managers of a hypothetical firm.

The experiment divided participants into groups that read different versions of the case. One version portrayed the internal auditor as "likable" (easy to be around, down to earth, nice, and understanding). In another, the internal auditor was "dislikable" (hard to be around, arrogant, a jerk, and condescending).

Format Variations

Different versions of the case also varied according to whether the available information was more or less supportive of the infernal auditor's preferred position, and whether that information appeared in an "argument format" or a "list format." The argument format information was arranged into logically organized paragraphs that might help recipients better understand, attend to, and process the implications of that information. The list format placed...