Abstract: This paper examines how management uses influence tactics to persuade auditors when negotiating with auditors on company annual reports. Influenced by the special social norms with the background of auditing professions, management is most likely to adopt rational persuasion tactic, less likely to adopt coalition tactic, and least likely to adopt personal appeal tactic. The performance expectations gap and whether the accounting firm is interviewed do not affect management's preferred order of using three tactics, but they will affect the extent of using these three influence tactics. Namely, when the performance gap is large, management is more likely to use the three influence tactics compared to the situation when the performance gap is small. When the accounting firm is interviewed, management is more likely to use the rational persuasion tactic and less likely to use personal appeal tactic compared to the situation when the accounting firm isn't interviewed. Research into questions mentioned above contributes to understanding how management tries to change the judgment and decision of the auditors by means of interpersonal influence. Therefore, this research is of guiding significance to improve the professional judgment and the quality of decision-making of auditors.

Key words: auditing negotiation, management, influence tactics