University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics

About: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Productivity & Tourism. The organization has 251 authors who have published 533 publications receiving 16109 citations.

How to Mitigate Auditor’s Conscious and Unconscious Bias? An Experimental Study

Abstract: Increasing evidence of auditors’ failure to provide an independent opinion on true and fair view of financial position of firms during the financial crisis has reopened the debates about effective measures to ensure auditor’s independence. The purpose of this paper is to examine two prominent determinants of auditor’s biased opinion – financial incentives and personal relationship with a client that cause conscious and unconscious auditor’s bias. We hypothesise that contingent financial incentives elicit predominantly conscious bias, whereas personal relationship induces mainly unconscious bias. We conjecture that oversight, intended to mitigate biases, is effective only for conscious bias. To analyze the hypotheses we conduct a two period two-by-two between and with-in subject experiment with 176 students involving a choice task. We find that financial incentives have a significant effect on an auditor’s choice. While personal relationship appears to have no such overall effect, we find it significantly related to unconscious bias. Our results show that oversight can effectively mitigate auditor’s bias, because most of it is conscious. Unconscious bias is persistent throughout both rounds of the experiment and is unaffected by oversight. The results suggest that while oversight may effectively mitigate conscious bias it does not affect the unconscious one. The findings contribute to the recent regulatory discussions on measures to increase auditors’ independence. They show that in addition to oversight alternative solutions are needed to mitigate the unconscious bias. Audit firm rotation may prevent the effects of unconscious bias by terminating the long-term auditor-client relationship.

Digital Piracy among Adults in Slovenia: An Application of the Theory if Interpersonal Behavior

Abstract: In this study, we aim to address the phenomenon of digital piracy by utilizing the Theory of Interpersonal Behavior (TIB), and testing the model on a sample of adult Internet users. Following the basic premise of the TIB, we suggest an individual’s piracy intention is influenced by perceived consequences (benefits and risk), affect, and norm susceptibility. Further, we hypothesize that piracy intention together with subjective knowledge leads to actual piracy behavior. Based on survey data from Slovenia, we show that piracy intention and subjective knowledge influence digital piracy behavior, while perceived positive consequences, affect, and norm susceptibility significantly shape an individual’s piracy intention.

Business Angels’ Early Stage Decision Making: What Lies Beyond?

Abstract: Cognitions of business angels when making investments is an important area of research in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship implies action (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006), that is, by definition, intentional behavior (Greve, 2001), and entrepreneurial decision making is a significant driver of entrepreneurial action. In prior literature, researchers have discussed the need to further investigate the relationships between the outcomes of angel investors’ decision making and the ways in which they process information (Shepherd et al., 2003), the conditions under which angel investors make their decisions (Mitteness et al., 2012), and the impact of prediction (Wiltbank et al., 2009) or perceived control (Drover et al., 2013) on decisions about how investments are pursued. At the same time, researchers have not fully comprehended how differences in entrepreneurial alertness, regulatory focus, self-efficacy, or cognitive style might impact an angel investor’s early-stage decision making. This paper applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to further investigate business angels’ decision making processes. The TPB posits intention as the direct antecedent of behavior (Ajzen, 1985), but entrepreneurship implies action, not only intention. Prior literature has supported the usefulness of TBP in explaining the emergence of entrepreneurial intentions and actions with some valid empirical results (Kautonen, 2013).