This study examines the effects of training on organization-level financial performance for male-owned and female-owned audit firms. We define audit firms whose auditors take professional training as non-violator firms and whose auditors do not take professional training as violator firms. Regression results indicate that financial performance of non-violator audit firms is better than that of violator firms. Maleowned audit firms are superior in financial performance to female-owned ones. Maleowned violator firms even outperform female-owned non-violator firms. In addition, the extent of financial performance effect of training in the female-owned audit firms is higher compared to the male-owned firms. Findings gained in this study indicate that gender-role stereotype dominates the determination of financial performance of Taiwanese audit firms due to the Chinese cultural values in social roles against women. This study extends prior studies on training and gender gap, contributing knowledge to the extant literatures.

This study examines the moderating effects of professional training on the relation between information technology (IT) investments and financial performance of audit firms in Taiwan. The organization-level financial performance includes productivity and profitability. Total IT investments are divided into software and hardware expenditures. Empirical results indicate that professional training positively associates with productivity significantly but insignificantly with profitability. IT negatively relates to productivity and profitability. Both productivity and profitability are improved by the interaction between IT and professional training, indicating that professional training mitigates the IT productivity paradox. This study takes training and IT into account simultaneously to empirically examine the moderator role of training in the organizational context in which IT is deployed. Evidences obtained thus contribute information to both IT and human resources management literatures. Taiwanese audit market structure is similar to that of many western countries, empirical results of this study possess global managerial implications.

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