The New Normal? Enhanced Psychological Well-Being from Public Accounting: Mitigating Conflict with Flexibility and Role Clarity

Jones, Ambrose; Guthrie, Cynthia P.

doi:10.1108/s1475-148820160000019002

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…In this regard, role theory included two dominant perspectives about the relationship between work and home: the scarcity perspective and the enhancement perspective (Greenhaus and Ten Brummelhuis, 2013). Our study focuses on the scarcity perspective because it is the most used perspective in the work-home literature (Jones and Guthrie, 2016). The scarcity perspective suggests that if an individual has several roles to be accomplished with a limited amount of time and energy, he will suffer from conflicts and interference between work and home (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985).…”

Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They demonstrated that work interference with home is negatively correlated with job satisfaction, which causes the increase of turnover intentions. Furthermore, Jones and Guthrie (2016) reported that work interference with home has negative effects on the psychological well-being of accounting professionals based on role theory. In fact, owing to these negative consequences, accounting firms are faced with the necessity of introducing flexibility in their work environment to help the employees to reduce the conflicts between work and personal life (Almer and Kaplan, 2002).…”

Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Almer and Kaplan (2002) noted that flexible work arrangements are negatively associated with job stress and work home conflicts. Recently, Jones and Guthrie (2016) found that flexibility has a positive effect on the psychological well-being of the accounting professionals. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:…”

Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can take the form of telework, reduced working hours, flexible start and stop times (Molina, 2008). Flexibility attenuates the negative effect of work interference with home on the psychological well-being (Jones and Guthrie, 2016). We use the role theory as a foundation of our paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flexibility and job stress in the accounting profession

Mnif

Rebai

2021

ARJ

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of flexibility as a coping mechanism for reducing the negative impact of job stress on the accounting profession. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a survey questionnaire sent by mail to accounting professionals in Tunisia. A total of 200 responses were examined using a structural equations modeling procedure. Findings The results indicate that flexibility attenuates the negative effects of job stress by improving job performance and job satisfaction among accounting professionals. Also, flexibility has a significant and positive association with psychological well-being. The results demonstrate that role ambiguity and overload have a positive influence on job burnout, which supports the argument that role stressors are antecedents of burnout in the accounting profession. Practical implications This study’s results help the accounting firms to reduce job stress by offering work flexibility to employees. Also, the results have significant implications for accounting professionals who are concerned with the consequences of job stress and the coping mechanisms that can diminish these consequences. Originality/value This study contributes to the behavioral accounting literature by examining flexibility as a coping strategy within the job stress model in an emerging country (Tunisia).

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Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Job Burnout and Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Flexibility and job stress in the accounting profession

Mnif

Rebai

2021

ARJ

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“…The impact of burnout in public accounting settings continues to draw the attention of accounting researchers (Chong and Monroe, 2013; Dalton et al , 2015; Jones III and Guthrie, 2016; Buchheit et al , 2016; Cannon and Herda, 2016; George and Wallio, 2017). These efforts to further examine the burnout dynamic in public accounting no doubt stem in part from new challenges facing the profession.…”

Section: Model Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

An examination of reduced audit quality practices within the beyond the role stress model

Smith

Emerson

Boster

2018

MAJ

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role stress model originally developed by Fogarty et al. (2000) using more refined measures, a context-specific performance metric and a targeted respondent group. The investigation uses a sample of working professional auditors to investigate the associations between job stressors, burnout and job outcomes using an industry-specific measure of job performance. Design/methodology/approach The analyses use structural equations modeling procedures to examine a model that postulates that burnout will mediate the relations between job stressors and job outcomes. The data for the study come from 293 survey instruments completed by auditors working at the offices of 11 public accounting firms. A parsimonious job satisfaction scale based on Churchill et al.’s (1985) 27-item scale is developed using classical test-item analysis and is incorporated into the analysis. Findings The results suggest three significant items of note. First, although prior research has found that burnout partially mediates relations between job stressors and job outcomes, this study shows that burnout fully mediates these associations. Second, the study provides support for the reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) scale as an audit-specific construct for job performance. Finally, results show that the 27-item job satisfaction scale can successfully be reduced to a six-item scale. Research limitations/implications While this study is subject to the limitations inherent to all cross-sectional studies that use self-report instruments, the results further the knowledge related to the role stress paradigm in auditor work settings. Practical implications This study’s findings provides a cogent argument for human resource managers at public accounting firms to monitor staff burnout levels and implement interventional strategies (Jones III et al., 2010) when these levels become excessive. Efforts to mitigate staff burnout levels may decrease the likelihood of staff engagement in dysfunctional audit practices and the associated costs to the firm and the individual(s) involved. Originality/value The findings also demonstrate the superiority of the RAQP scale in terms of explaining variance in auditor performance when compared to the modified performance measures utilized in prior research.

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