Abstract
Planning the staffing of expected audit workload for a CPA firm can be a complex problem subject to a number of objectives and constraints. It is likely no solution fully satisfies all objectives; rather, a decision maker makes trade-offs, achieving more of one objective at the expense of another. Planning models aid in this process by providing alternative configurations and assessing the degree to which each objective is achieved. The audit staffing decision has sufficient complexity to benefit from the development of formal planning models. In this study, a multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) model appropriate to the audit planning decision is developed and tested. The model is an interactive one, leading the decision maker to the eventual schedule via a series of steps that depict various tradeoffs among a variety of objectives, subject to the constraints faced by the firm. Through the interim steps, the model assesses the scheduler’s relative preferences among the various objectives, and refines the weights attributed to each.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bailey, A. D., W. J. Boe and T. Schnack, “The Audit Staff Assignment Problem: A Comment,” The Accounting Review, (July 1974), pp. 572–74.
Balachandran, K. R. and R. E. Steuer, “An Interactive Model for the CPA Firm Audit Staff Planning Problem with Multiple Objectives,” The Accounting Review, (January 1982), pp. 125–40.
Gardner, J. C., R. J. Huefner, and V. Lotfi. Lotfi, “A Multiperiod Audit Staff Planning Model Using Multiple Objectives: Development and Evaluation, Decision Sciences, forthcoming Winter 1990.
Gibson, M. H. L., Bernardo, J. J., Chung, C. and R. Badinelli, “A Comparison of Interactive Multiple Objective Decision Making Procedures,” Computers and Operations Research, (Vol. 14, 1987 ), pp. 97–105.
Gibson, M. H. L. and A. Reinstein, “The CPA Firm Audit Staff Planning Problem with Multiple Objectives”, Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 1986.
Keeney, R. L. and H. Raiffa, Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs (John Wiley and Sons, 1976 ).
Killough, L. N. and T. L. Souders, “A Goal Programming Model for Public Accounting Firms,” The Accounting Review, (April 1973), pp. 268–79.
Schrage, L., Linear Integer, and Quadratic Programming with Lindo, ( The Scientific Press, Palo Alto, 1984 ).
Steuer, R. E., “An Interactive Multiple Objective Linear Programming Procedure,” TIMS Studies in the Management Science, (Vol. 6, 1977 ). pp. 225–239.
Steuer, R. E., Multiple Criteria Optimization: Theory, Computation, and Application, (John Wiley & Sons, New York, p. 361, 1986 ).
Welling, P., “A Goal Programming Model for Human Resource Accounting in a CPA Firm,” Accounting, Organizations and Society, (No. 4, 1977 ). pp. 307–16.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gardner, J.C., Huefner, R.J., Lotfi, V. (1989). An Interactive Multi-Criteria Model for Audit Workload Planning. In: Lockett, A.G., Islei, G. (eds) Improving Decision Making in Organisations. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 335. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-49298-3_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-49298-3_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-51795-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-49298-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive