In this study, we examine whether the triangular decomposition of fraud risk

assessments (that is, separately assessing, opportunity, and risk before assessing the
overall risk) increases auditors' sensitivity to opportunities and incentives when
management's perception of fraud is low. In an experiment with 52 practicing audit
managers, we find that auditors who discuss risk are more sensitive to opportunity and find
opportunity when making an overall assessment than auditors who only make overall fraud
risk. Although increasing the auditor's ability to perceive opportunity and the motivation to
exhibit low risk can help reduce the bias of quantitative predictive models that tend to
overestimate the likelihood of probabilities (Hansen, McDonald, Messier, & Bell, 1996;
Nischwitz, Schz, and Zimbelman, 2000), current audits it is more concerned with the
community risk that existing violations will escape auditors than the risk of costly
investigations of non-existent violations. Second, the decomposition may not increase
auditors' exposure to high-risk opportunities and motivations when conducting an overall
assessment, because it allows them to recognize that the risk associated with the attitude
is low.

When opportunities and incentives indicate high fraud risk, auditors are equally
sensitive to the challenge whether they use the decomposition of increased sensitivity to
low-risk opportunities and leverage incentives to help auditors reduce the bias of fraud
prediction models, which, although tend to overestimate the likelihood of fraud (Hansen,
MacDonald, 2007). , Messier, and Bell 1996; Nieschwietz, Schultz, and Zimbelman 2000),
today's audit environment is more concerned with existing errors than with the costly
investigation of non-existent fraud. Second, the decomposition may not make the auditor's
overall risk assessment more sensitive to high odds and risks because the decomposition
may also help the auditor realize that the risk factor is at a low level.

Anticipating auditors make judgments about something pleasing overall which is

riskier to opportunity and conversely auditors who do not anticipate make judgments.
Overall, it is possible that in today's risky business environment, auditors are already very
sensitive to anything that might suggest fraud risk. In such an uncertain and risky
environment, likely, the decomposition will not increase the auditor's sensitivity to high-risk
and risk opportunities because the auditor may already be sensitive to anything that
indicates fraud risk. by a significant interaction with the assessment method (p 0.024),
where auditors who were at risk for this component before making opportunities were
overall more sensitive to risk and incentives (7.71 in the high-risk setting versus 4.46 in the
low-risk setting, p 0 .0001) Instead of auditors assessing the risk of this component after
conducting an overall fraud assessment (7.54 versus 5.67, p 0.001). However, the effect of
this level of risk was qualified by a significant interaction with the valuation method (p
0.014), where the risk assessment of auditors anticipating a fraud triangle decomposition
was more sensitive to opportunity and incentive risk (6.57 in the high-risk setting versus
3.92 in the low-risk setting, p 0.0001) compared to auditors who rated holistic (6.77 versus
5.50, p 0.008).

A final decomposition may not increase the auditor's sensitivity to opportunities and
incentives in a high-risk setting is that the decomposition may also help the auditor realize
that attitudinal risk factors are at low levels. opportunity and incentive risks than auditors
performing holistically First, the auditors in our study may be particularly sensitive to fraud
because the risky business environment existed when we collected data in December
2001. 8. The main effect for assessing these opportunity and incentive components was
qualified by interactions with which auditors from one company are more sensitive to our
hazards than auditors from another. In particular, the tendency to favor overall concern
has made assessments of components in holistic settings appear less sensitive to
opportunity risk and incentives than they are.