About

Yoon Ju Kang is an Associate Professor and the Richard Dieter MS ’66 and Susan C. Dieter Endowed Faculty Fellow at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds a PhD in Accountancy and an MS in Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as a BS in Mass Communication & Journalism with a double major in Business Administration from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. Her professional experience includes working in the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association and being a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois. Since joining UMass Amherst in 2014, she has contributed to the academic community through her research and teaching in the areas of auditing, corporate governance, and financial accounting. Her research has been recognized with several awards and grants, including the KPMG Faculty Fellow and the KPMG Academic Research Program Grant. Kang's work focuses on issues related to auditor communications, audit firm practices, and audit committee oversight, and she has published extensively in reputable accounting journals. She is actively involved in advancing knowledge in her field and has been honored for her teaching excellence at the Isenberg School of Management.

Research topics

• Accounting
• Business
• Political Science
• Public relations
• Engineering
• Law

Selected publications

• Shifting Jurisdictional Boundaries: Private Equity and the Professional Ecology of Accounting

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Audit Committee Member Scepticism and Questioning Behaviour

  International Journal of Auditing · 2026-01-07

  articleOpen access1st author

  ABSTRACT Audit committee members' (ACMs) need to exercise appropriate levels of scepticism in overseeing the financial reporting and auditing processes. However, concerns have been raised about ACMs' application of scepticism. Responding to calls for research on audit committees' oversight processes, this paper employs a multimethod qualitative design to examine ACM scepticism through their questioning behaviour. First, we analyse the questions 29 very experienced ACMs prepare for external auditors and CFOs regarding a significant accounting estimate. We outline the observed similarities and differences in the questioning behaviour between ACMs with alternate expertise, namely, former audit partners and nonaccountant directors. The questions reveal the focus and nature of ACMs' scepticism and questioning behaviour, and how this differs between former audit partners and nonaccountant directors. Second, we conduct supplementary interviews with Big 4 audit partners about their experiences of ACM questioning behaviour and scepticism to triangulate our findings from our analysis of ACM questions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “Back to Basics”: Exercises to Teach Auditing Fundamentals

  Issues in Accounting Education · 2025-10-10

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT This learning strategy is a compilation of six “Back to Basics” exercises presented during the 2024 Excellence in Auditing Education Workshop. These exercises are resources that use analogies and experiential learning to teach basic audit concepts. The exercises cover the following: (1) explaining the demand for audits, (2) introducing the concept of materiality, (3) introducing the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission framework for internal control over financial reporting, (4) explaining management assertions through an audit of petty cash, (5) performing sampling and an inventory count, and (6) explaining audit reports. These exercises can be used in either undergraduate or graduate audit courses, and are flexible to allow instructors to modify, adapt, and expand on them to fit their classroom environment. The Teaching Notes accompanying this learning strategy provide additional guidance on implementation and supplemental files for instructors and students.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Disentangling Overall Audit Inspection Risk: The Effects of Inspection Focus and Inspection Likelihood

  Accounting Horizons · 2025-08-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  SYNOPSIS We extend research examining how PCAOB inspections impact auditor behavior by identifying inspection focus (i.e., the PCAOB’s explicit identification of inspection focal areas) as a critical component of inspection risk. We report the results of two experiments that demonstrate the impact of inspection focus under differing levels of resource constraints. The results support our predictions, which are based on regulatory focus theory. Specifically, we observe that inspection focus leads to greater audit effort in the focal area, regardless of the level of resource constraints. Further, under higher resource constraints, we find that inspection focus triggers significantly reduced effort in nonfocal, higher-risk areas. Our findings should interest researchers, regulators, and practitioners, as they identify potential unintended consequences of the current inspection process. JEL Classifications: M42; M48.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Auditor communication on critical audit matters: Timing, inspection likelihood, and the audit committee

  Contemporary Accounting Research · 2024-01-24 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In response to the extended audit report regulations implemented in the United States and internationally, both audit firms and regulators have increased scrutiny over critical audit matters/key audit matters (collectively referred to as CAMs) through internal and external inspections. At the same time, auditors and audit committees (ACs) have altered the content and timing of CAM‐related discussions by communicating specific planned audit procedures earlier in the audit process. This study explores the effect of early communication of CAM‐related audit procedures to the AC and increased scrutiny from inspections on auditors' propensity to adjust planned audit procedures in the presence of newly identified audit risks. Based on self‐justification theory, we predict and find that early communication of planned audit procedures to the AC causes auditors to be less likely to adjust planned audit procedures even when additional risks arise that necessitate change, especially when inspection is likely. This has the potential for diminished audit quality. Interviews with audit partners provide context for how these findings relate to the current auditing environment.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Auditors’ scepticism in response to audit committee oversight behaviour

  Accounting and Finance · 2022-03-30 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We use two experiments and a survey to examine how audit committee (hereafter, AC) oversight behaviour, particularly AC sceptical attitude and proactive behaviour, affects auditor scepticism, and whether the influence is driven by the risk aspect of auditors’ assessment of AC oversight behaviour. We find that when ACs exercise insufficient scepticism, auditors (junior auditors, managers, and partners) perceive AC oversight as weak, and increase their scepticism. However, AC proactive behaviour does not significantly influence auditor scepticism. Our findings suggest auditors view weak AC oversight as a risk indicator and respond by exercising greater scepticism.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Knowledge Creation and Transfer in the Context of National Office Consultations: Experiences of Audit Firm Partners

  Auditing A Journal of Practice & Theory · 2022-11-22 · 7 citations

  article

  SUMMARY Knowledge creation and transfer within audit firms is critical to achieving high audit quality. We conduct semistructured interviews with 22 engagement partners and national office partners, and we draw on Nonaka and Takeuchi’s socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) model to understand how knowledge creation and transfer processes unfold in audit firms in the context of national office consultations. Overall, we observe that the national office and engagement partners engage in all four processes of knowledge creation and transfer outlined in the SECI model: tacit to tacit, explicit to explicit, tacit to explicit, and explicit to tacit. Our study offers implications for auditors and regulators and brings to light opportunities for future auditing research. JEL Classifications: M41.

  PublisherDOI

• Motivated Perspective Taking: Why Prompting Auditors to Take an Investor's Perspective Makes Them Treat Identified Audit Differences as Less Material*

  Contemporary Accounting Research · 2021-08-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Audit regulators and commentators propose prompting auditors to more fully take an investor's perspective as a remedy to their concern that auditors underreact to material misstatements. By contrast, we predict that prompting auditors in this manner will backfire, making them less (more) heavily weight indicia that misstatements are (not) material. We further predict auditors will apply this asymmetric weighting instrumentally —to a greater degree as needed—to justify management‐preferred conclusions. We test these predictions in two experiments in which in‐charge audit seniors judge the likelihood that identified audit differences are material and choose required adjustment amounts. Between‐participants, we manipulate whether or not auditors are prompted to take an investor's perspective and, within‐participants, whether these audit differences would or would not violate a qualitative criterion—by breaking or not breaking a favorable profitability trend. Study 1 uses a context in which a relatively low degree of motivated perspective taking is needed, as the audit difference is just below tolerable misstatement (TM). Investor‐prompted auditors assess audit differences as less likely to be material than do unprompted auditors, but only when the qualitative criterion is not violated. Study 2 adds a between‐participant manipulation of misstatement tolerability—that is, whether the audit difference is just below or well above TM. Consistent with an instrumental increase in motivated perspective taking, investor‐prompted auditors assess audit differences that simultaneously are less tolerable and violate a qualitative criterion as significantly less likely to be material. Overall, our theory and experimental evidence suggest prompting auditors to take the investor perspective may have unintended consequences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Revealing Oz: Institutional Work Shaping Auditors’ National Office Consultations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Disentangling Overall Audit Inspection Risk: The Effects of Inspection Focus and Inspection Likelihood

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020 · 10 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Accounting
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Marietta Peytcheva

  Lehigh University

  4 shared

• Sanaz Aghazadeh

  4 shared

• Ken T. Trotman

  Australian Taxation Office

  3 shared

• Andrew J. Trotman

  Kennesaw State University

  3 shared

• M. David Piercey

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  3 shared

• Mary Kate Dodgson

  Lehigh University

  3 shared

• Elizabeth C. Altiero

  University of Central Florida

  2 shared

• Mark E. Peecher

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• KPMG Faculty Fellow, KPMG, 2025-2027
• KPMG Academic Research Program Grant, KPMG, 2021
• Faculty Research Grant, UMass Amherst, 2020
• College Outstanding Teaching Award, Isenberg School of Manag…
• Access to Audit Personnel Program, Center for Audit Quality,…