The Reinvented accounting firm office: Impression management for efficiency, client relations and cost control

Pursuing Big Issues in Covid-World Accounting Research

“…Issues already surfacing within the office related accounting research literature include professional accounting firm audit process impacts. These include client-audit and other accounting staff withinaudit firm office interactions and the effect on audit independence, the effect on audit firm professionalism of office redesign and commercial imagery, the impact of ABW offices on cross selling services within an audit firm and the impact of changed audit staff interactions and staff-client interactions on quality of audit conducted (Parker & Schmitz, 2021). Client relations also emerge as a major strategic interest of professional audit firm office design.…”

“…Client relations also emerge as a major strategic interest of professional audit firm office design. Both historically and today, this plays an intentional role in the firm's impression management designed to persuade the clients of the accounting and audit firm's expertise, credibility and service delivery (Parker & Schmitz, 2021).…”

“…In these open plan/ABW settings, staff are rendered more visible, more open to surveillance, and less autonomous in their control over their workspace. Research into staff motivational impacts, professional self-perceptions, productivity risks, and any tendency towards worker soldiering (as when under time and motion study in the early days of scientific management) is also much needed (Parker & Schmitz, 2021). While the style of management control has become less process monitoring and more output focussed, whether it will deliver the benefits management seeks remains an open question (Parker, 2016).…”

“…It also reduces churn costs associated with traditional office interior redesigns and major changes in staffing numbers and profile. Certainly, the ABW literature and advocates make considerable claims about major organisational cost savings to be derived from such designs (Parker, 2016;Parker & Schmitz, 2021).…”

Sustainable development and stakeholder engagement in the agri‐food sector: Exploring the nexus between biodiversity conservation and information technology

“…This theory suggests that organizational sustainability practices can serve as a tactic to distort stakeholders' perceptions of corporate social and environmental achievement or as a technique to rationalize the occurrence of unethical behaviors in order to maintain firms' reputations (Cho et al, 2012; Hooghiemstra, 2000; Pinelli & Maiolini, 2017). Organizations carry out impression management through a variety of means, including corporate reports, mass media, and even office design with the aim to emphasizing the positive aspects of their performance and to obfuscate negative outcomes (Cho et al, 2012; Godfrey et al, 2003; Merkl‐Davies et al, 2011; Parker & Schmitz, 2022). Several articles provide a detailed typology of tactics whereby organizations seek to influence their image (Boiral, 2016; Bolino et al, 2008; Chong & Rahman, 2020).…”