From the existing literature, it appears that gender has a significant influence on the manner in which information is collected and processed. Gender also appears to have a significant effect on the risk profile. This paper examines the effects of auditor gender on audit report and audit opinion. Only a limited number of studies have investigated gender differences in an audit context. The paper tests its hypotheses on the basis of a laboratory experiment in which it analyzes the final written exams of 20 female and 20 male future auditors. The findings suggest that women auditors discover more potential misstatements than male auditors, though they analyze the misstatements in a less accurate manner than male auditors. The findings also indicate that women auditors are more risk-averse than male auditors. Implications on auditor choice by companies, assignment of personnel to audit teams, and quality control issues are also discussed in the paper.

This article studies the potential effects of auditor gender on the contents of audit report and the severity of audit opinion. In audit opinion, the external auditor expresses an opinion about the true and fair presentation of financial statements. The quality of audit services is defined to be the probability that the auditor discovers and reports a material misstatement in the financial statements (DeAngelo, 1981; and Palmrose, 1984). The probability of discovering a material misstatement depends on the auditor's expertise and the audit procedures employed, of which many are known to be complex. The probability of reporting a discovered misstatement in the audit report depends on the auditor's risk profile and the auditor's independence from the client.

The existing literature suggests that gender has a significant influence on the manner in which information is collected and processed (selectivity hypothesis, Meyers-Levy, 1989). It is suggested that women work more efficiently in complex decision making situations and they may make more accurate decisions. Women also appear to be more risk-averse than men (Diberardinis et al., 1984; Sexton and Bowman, 1990; and Darley and Smith, 1995). Women are more careful, well-reasoned and conservative. On the basis of these findings, we expect a significant effect of auditor gender on how misstatements in the financial statements are detected by the auditor, how they are accounted for in the audit report and how they are reflected in the audit opinion.

Accounting Research and Audit Practices Journal, Decision Making, Iinformation Processing Strategies, Cerebrospinal Fluid, Cerebral Blood Dlow and Glucose Metabolism, Quality Ccontrol, Audit Engagements, Audit Memorandum, Financial Statements, Decision Tasks, Biological Factors, potential effects.