One of my favorite books on auditing is How to Audit the Process-Based QMS by Dennis R. Arter, Charles A. Cianfrani, and John E. (Jack) West
This book states:
"A finding statement can take one of three forms:
1. An objective statement of the deficiency,
2. A Subjective statement of the problem, in business language,
3. A Subjective cause and effect statement, showing the problem and its business consequences."
Because we chose to have our findings written as form #3, we have incorporated a space on the finding form that allows the audited process owner to place their comments on the form in case they disagree with the problem or impact statement written by the auditor.
We do this because the problem statement developed by the auditor is a subjective opinion supported by the facts. Our procedure explains that the signature on the finding record is
acknowledgement of the facts supporting the finding. Rarely do we encounter a situation where the audited process owner suffers indigestion due to a finding statement. In either case, our process owners are given time to construct and record their opinion of the facts before the audit report is written for our top management. Both opinions are then considered in constructing the written audit report.
Our audit finding records are inputs into our Corrective and Preventive Action Processes and our audit reports are inputs for top management's review. We have not had any issues in getting Corrective Actions initiated from our findings, and quite often we see Preventive Actions produced from our audit efforts. (e.g. a finding can either indicate conformity or nonconformity with audit criteria or opportunities for improvement - ISO 9000 3.9.5's Note)
By constructing our audit program in this way, we believe we foster constructive partnership between auditor and auditee and top management has the added assurance that at the end of the audit everyone is on the same page.
So, I can't exactly agree that requiring signatures on findings is a bad thing because we have experienced quite the opposite.