We examine whether firms with managers that have prior internal audit experience are less likely to manage earnings. This examination is important because the internal audit function (IAF) is uniquely positioned to provide experiences that could influence future managerial behavior, including limiting the potential negative repercussions of earnings management. We find that firms with managers that have internal audit experience are associated with lower real earnings management (REM) but not accruals‐based earnings management. Effects are strongest when managers with internal audit experience have greater power or currently hold financial roles, or when there are a greater number of managers with internal audit experience. The results are robust to including firm fixed effects, using entropy‐balancing and performance‐matching approaches, using a subsample of firm‐years required to have an IAF, using a subsample of firms for which we can measure IAF quality, and measuring internal audit experience at a previous employer. These results point to an important benefit of manager internal audit experience, as research suggests that REM is common, difficult to detect, not always within the scope of financial reporting regulators, and detrimental to future performance.

Although recent evidence suggests that individual audit partners explain a substantial portion of the variation in audit quality proxies, much less is known about what determines an audit partner's quality. Psychology and behavioral economics theories hold that an individual's experiences can have enduring impacts on subsequent behavior. We examine whether auditors' direct exposure to Arthur Andersen's collapse has a long‐term impact on the quality of their audits. Our evidence implies that audit partners who directly experienced Andersen's demise impose stricter monitoring evident in their clients exhibiting a lower propensity for misstatements and small profits, and paying higher audit fees. Importantly, these findings reconcile with research in finance and economics implying that firsthand experiences matter more to subsequent behavior than general economic conditions or secondhand or thirdhand experiences. Collectively, the results shed light on one facet of how partners' audit quality evolves over time. Our findings suggest that major failures associated with the audit firm in which an auditor works can ultimately result in these affected individuals later delivering higher audit quality, which should benefit audit committees in partner selection decisions and audit firms in designing partner assignment policies.