دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی هویت های حرفه ای و سازمانی حسابداران و تجاری سازی در شرکت های حسابرسی - امرالد 2018

Abstract

Purpose: This paper seeks to explain how auditors’ professional and organizational identities are associated with commercialization in audit firms. Unlike previous studies exploring the consequences of commercialization in the firms, our study directs its attention toward the potential driver of commercialization, which we argue to be the identities of the auditors. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on 374 responses to a survey distributed to 3588 members of FAR, the professional association of accountants, auditors and advisors in Sweden. The study used established measures of organizational and professional identity and introduced market, customer and firm process orientation as aspects of commercialization. The study explored the data through descriptive statistics, principle component analysis and correlation analysis and tested the hypotheses with multiple linear regression analysis. Findings: The findings indicated that the organizational identity of auditors has a positive association with three aspects of commercialization: market orientation, customer orientation and firm process orientation. Contrary to the arguments based on prior literature, our study has found that the professional identity of auditors is also a positively associated with commercialization. This indicates a change of the role of professional identity vis-à-vis commercialization of audit firms. The positive association between professional identity and commercial orientation could indicate the development of “organizational professionalism.” The study also found differences between the association between professional identity and commercialization in Big 4 and non-Big 4 firms. While in Big 4 firms, professional identity is positively associated only with the firm’s process orientation, in non-Big 4 firms, professional identity has a positive association with all three aspects of commercialization. Originality/value: The paper provides insight into how auditors’ identities have influenced commercialization of audit firms and into the normalizing of commercialization within auditing. The study also developed a new instrument for measuring commercialization, one based on market, customer and firm process orientation concepts. This paper suggests that this instrument is an alternative to the observation through proxies.

Discussion and conclusions

Studies within the auditing field often seek to explain the outcome of commercialization, yet few studies have been done on what influences commercialization. Both external (environmental) and internal (organizational) forces have been said to drive commercialization in audit firms. Some authors have posited that these forces are manifested through the professional and organizational identities of the auditors (e.g., Settles, 2004; Johnson et al., 2006). Building on this idea, we sought to explain how auditors’ professional and organizational identities are associated with commercialization in audit firms. Our empirical findings suggest that both professional and organizational identities drive commercialization in audit firms. We drew this conclusion because our results indicated that increasing identification with the profession and the organization, respectively, shows positive associations with perceived commercialization of an audit firm – irrespective of what dimension of commercialization was considered. When it comes to professional identity, our findings (non-supported hypotheses 1, 3 and 5), stand in contrast to those of Gendron and Spira (2010), Sori et al. (2010) and Sweeney and McGarry (2011), which suggest that professional identity is negatively associated with commercialization. Commercialization may have become an essential part of auditors’ reality, just as Broberg et al. (2013) suggested marketing activities have become. This is why a sense of belonging to the profession has a positive association with audit firms’ commercial activities rather than manifesting itself in a negative association.