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Using experimental methods, we examine the impact of employee volunteerism on staff auditor decision making. While employee volunteer programs are generally seen as positive developments, we find that employee volunteerism may have an unintended negative consequence. Our results are consistent with moral licensing, and suggest that staff auditors who engage in employee volunteer activities become more willing to commit a dysfunctional audit behavior, which reduces audit quality. Since audit firms and employees are unlikely to abandon volunteer activities, we also investigate a way to mitigate the moral licensing effect. We find that a strong ethical environment helps to attenuate moral licensing in volunteers, and preserve audit quality. Our study contributes to research on moral licensing, audit quality, and ethical behavior.
Matthew J. Hayes, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Michael J Killey, University of Michigan - Dearborn
Stephanie Tsui, City University of Hong Kong