Margin of safety: Life history strategies and the effects of socioeconomic status on self-selection into accounting

Leiby, Justin; Madsen, Paul E.

doi:10.1016/j.aos.2017.07.001

Cited by 33 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Recent research in Australia finds the progressive tax regime and welfare transfers Sikka (2015) argues accountants undermine are bulwarks against sharper increases in economic inequality (Productivity Commission, 2018). Hence, while an accounting career might mitigate inequality by providing a ladder out of poverty for new graduates (Leiby and Madsen, 2017) the accounting profession is having the opposite effect.…”

Section: Existing Interdisciplinary Research On Accounting For Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research

Tweedie

Hazelton

2019

AAAJ

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to encourage and advance interdisciplinary accounting research on economic inequality. Design/methodology/approach The authors review prior research into economic inequality, including two new papers in this issue, to identify topics where economic inequality and accounting research intersect. The authors then draw on prior accounting research to identify frameworks accounting scholars already use apposite to analysing these topics. Findings Economic inequality cuts across major accounting topics, including measurement, reporting and tax. Inequality also bears on an influential agenda in interdisciplinary accounting research to hold corporations and states accountable for their impacts. Four prior research frameworks accounting scholars might apply to this agenda are: critical Marxian or post-Marxian; accounting ethics; advocacy; and disclosure studies. Social implications A growing body of social scientific research, as well as influential global institutions, social movements and political debates, raise concerns over inequitable global distributions of wealth and income. The authors explore ways accounting scholars can help redress these inequities. Originality/value While economic inequality affects billions of people, accounting scholarship is yet to give these inequities the attention their scale and social impact merits. The authors suggest ways accounting researchers can make substantive contributions to addressing this issue.

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Section: Existing Interdisciplinary Research On Accounting For Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research

Tweedie

Hazelton

2019

AAAJ

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“…However, some additional individual characteristics that could be considered to play a role in the audit team setting are an individual's personality type and his cognitive style. The population of staff auditors is inherently different from the human/professional population as a whole due to the general preference toward concrete and analytical thinking, which may be the result of self-selection into a profession not known to emphasize creativity but more so conscientiousness (Leiby and Madsen 2017). At the same time, auditors continually face decisions, sometimes with no clear answer, requiring professional judgment that requires creativity to find the best solution while still following professional and ethical standards.…”

Section: Individual Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The copycat effect: do social influences allow peer team members' dysfunctional audit behaviors to spread throughout the audit team?

Wetmiller

2021

JAAR

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PurposeThis study seeks to identify the role that peer team members' behaviors and superiors' preferences play in influencing the likelihood that staff auditors engage in dysfunctional audit behavior (DAB).Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an experiment that manipulates peer team member behavior (DAB present or DAB absent) and superior preference (efficiency or effectiveness). Students enrolled in a graduate accounting course, proxying for inexperienced staff auditors, receive an internal control sample selection task. Participants assess the likelihood that a typical staff auditor would engage in DAB or non-DAB.FindingsFirst, staff auditors with a peer team member who engages in DAB are more likely to engage in DAB. Second, staff auditors who have a superior with a preference toward efficiency are more likely to engage in DAB. Finally, when considered simultaneously, the effect of the superior's preference on the likelihood of staff auditors engaging in DAB is not different for staff auditors, subject to a peer engaging in DAB versus those subject to a peer who engaged in a non-DAB.Research limitations/implicationsThis study uses a hypothetical audit team, a written script of team member communication, and students proxying for inexperienced staff auditors. As such, future studies might consider improving the realism of the team setting, the manner in which a message is portrayed, and implications at higher levels within the audit team hierarchy.Practical implicationsTeam interactions contribute to the prevalence of DAB within the profession. Specifically, inexperienced auditors are influenced by the behavior of peer and superior team members and this may be one cause of the prevalence of DAB within the profession. As such, future firm considerations could include well-structured mentorship programs and rewards structures.Originality/valueThis study adds to the audit team literature by investigating the influence of audit team dynamics on staff auditors' behaviors. This paper extends the current audit team literature, that is mostly focused on supervisor–subordinate relationships, by investigating social influences from peers and superiors. This study's findings inform public accounting firms of areas in which personnel may negatively affect audit quality through intra-team interactions.

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“…Second, accountants are likely protected against disillusionment, a prominent theoretical cause of career burnout (Freudenberger 1974(Freudenberger , 1975, because they choose accounting for realistic reasons. Specifically, students who pursue accounting degrees tend to be interested in earning money and having stable jobs, while they are particularly unlikely to study accounting because it interests them, and accounting delivers on these expectations (Leiby andMadsen 2017, Madsen 2015). Finally, literature on accounting stereotypes written by academic and practitioner accountants either directly argues or implicitly assumes that negative stereotypes about accounting are not accurate (Belski et al 2003, Chen et al 2012, DeCoster and Rhode 1971, Jeacle 2008, Warren and Parker 2009, which suggests, at a minimum, that the accountants producing this literature do not believe that accounting is a miserable job.…”

Section: Background and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Accounting a Miserable Job?

Madsen

Piao

2021

SSRN Journal

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Popular culture portrays accounting as a miserable job. Accounting research evaluating the boring "beancounter stereotype" argues that it is wrong and costly because it reduces the appeal of accounting to high quality students and exacts a psychological toll on accountants who are thus stereotyped. In this study, we empirically test the basic question: is accounting a miserable job? We use data from a variety of sources that enable us to measure workplace misery and model it as a function of work tasks and personal characteristics of workers across occupations. We find that accounting work is particularly sedentary, rigid, repetitive, constrained, and rulescentric; characteristics that are consistent with the accounting stereotype and that prior work outside of accounting has shown are associated with workplace misery. However, we find that accounting is not a miserable job. In univariate and multivariate tests, we find that accounting has misery values that are either near the average or are better than average for comparison jobs. This apparent paradox could be a positive consequence of accounting stereotypes, which may facilitate the matching of potentially miserable work with people who are most prepared to tolerate it. Indeed, we present longitudinal evidence suggesting that accounting attracts people with personalities suited to repetitive and rules-centric work and who have psychosocial histories that make them robust to stress. Workplace misery is costly to workers, employers, and society and accounting stereotypes have value if they facilitate informed career selection.

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Margin of safety: Life history strategies and the effects of socioeconomic status on self-selection into accounting

Cited by 33 publications

References 48 publications

Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research

Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research

The copycat effect: do social influences allow peer team members' dysfunctional audit behaviors to spread throughout the audit team?

Is Accounting a Miserable Job?

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