To foster positive relationships with clients, audit firms often assign “relationship partners” (hereafter RPs) to engagements. Yet, little is known about RPs’ influence on disagreements that arise during fieldwork. We conduct an experiment with financial executives to examine the influence of RP intervention during auditor-client negotiations, and whether such influence depends on the extent to which the engagement partner and client have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to resolve the issue (i.e., negotiation “ripeness”). We find that, without an RP, clients concede less during a more ripe negotiation stage (i.e., mutually hurting stalemate) than a less ripe stage. Yet, it is at this more ripe stage that certain RP intervention approaches can maintain clients’ trust in the audit firm and move them toward the auditor’s position (compared to no RP intervention). RPs can help end stalemates and minimize relationship impairment. We discuss implications for audit firms, regulators, and researchers.

为了与客户建立积极的关系，审计事务所通常会为业务分配“关系伙伴”（以下简称 RP）。然而，关于 RP 对实地工作期间出现的分歧的影响知之甚少。我们与财务主管进行了一项实验，以检查审计师与客户谈判期间 RP 干预的影响，以及这种影响是否取决于项目合作伙伴和客户尝试解决问题的程度，尽管未成功（即谈判“成熟”）。我们发现，在没有 RP 的情况下，客户在更成熟的谈判阶段（即相互伤害的僵局）比在不太成熟的阶段让步更少。然而，正是在这个更成熟的阶段，某些 RP 干预方法可以保持客户对会计师事务所的信任，并将他们推向审计师的位置（与没有 RP 干预相比）。RP 可以帮助结束僵局并最大程度地减少关系损害。我们讨论对审计公司、监管机构和研究人员的影响。