Effects of Personal Characteristics on Materiality Decisions: A Multivariate Analysis

In an effort to contribute to improved audit efficiency and quality, an experiment was administered to 596 CPAs to study the potential effects on materiality judgments of auditors' personal characteristics. A multivariate analysis indicates that age and place of employment can affect materiality decisions, while years of external auditing experience, place of employment, frequency of materiality decisions, and gender may affect confidence in materiality decisions.