Rate My Professor Brian Fitzgerald

Brian Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Accounting from Texas A&M University in 2014, a Master of Accounting in 2003, and a Bachelor of Business Administration in 2002, both from the College of William and Mary. Prior to his academic career, Fitzgerald worked at Ernst & Young LLP as an Assurance Services Intern at Arthur Andersen (2001), Staff Auditor in Richmond, Virginia (2003-2005), Senior Auditor in St. Louis, Missouri (2005-2008), and Manager (2008-2010), serving as the firm's Sector Resident for the North American Mining & Metals practice. He is a Certified Public Accountant in Missouri (inactive).

Fitzgerald's research specializes in behavioral factors influencing auditor judgment and decision-making, including audit process elements, communication with clients and audit professionals, and auditor characteristics, as well as archival examinations of client relationship factors on audit quality. His publications appear in leading journals, including "Audit Partner Tenure and Internal Control Reporting Quality: U.S. Evidence from the Not-For-Profit Sector" with Thomas Omer and Anne Thompson (Contemporary Accounting Research, 2018); "The Effect of Partition Dependence on Assessing Accounting Estimates" with Christopher Wolfe and Nathan Newton (Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 2017, featured in The Wall Street Journal); "Voluntary Formation of Audit Committees by Large Municipal Governments" with Gary Giroux (Research in Accounting Regulation, 2014); and "Auditors’ Internal Control Over Financial Reporting Decisions: Analysis, Synthesis, and Research Directions" with Stephen Asare, Lynford Graham, Jennifer Joe, Eric Negangard, and Christopher Wolfe (Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 2013). Current working papers, some funded by CAQ Research Advisory Board Grants, address auditor resistance to management influence and auditor-developed estimates. He has taught financial accounting, intermediate accounting, and auditing courses at William & Mary, Northern Arizona University, Northeastern University, and Texas A&M University, earning strong student assessments averaging above 4.5/5. Fitzgerald reviews for The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and AAA conferences, and serves on the Mason School of Business Research Committee.