Power and the Audit Senior Associate

• In Event: Audit Firm Culture

Abstract

Audit senior associates play a critical role in the audit process, yet we know little about how they perceive and define their organizational role. Our analysis of interview data from 22 U.S.-based audit seniors reveals they experience their role as a “juggling act” to meet divergent expectations within time constraints and as “boots on the ground” who possess unique, valuable information. Seniors define their role in terms of their sense of control over the resources of time and information, a sense that fluctuates as interact with other audit team members. We apply recent theory on the psychology of power that characterizes power as “asymmetric control over valued resources in social relationships” to analyze how seniors respond to conflicting behavioral norms and motivations that arise from fluctuating between a sense of higher power when interacting with subordinates and lower power when interacting with superiors. Our findings indicate that seniors occupy a “middle power” position that necessitates heightened vigilance to other audit team members’ expectations and preferences. We describe strategies seniors enact in response to their sense of power and the downstream consequences for audit quality. We also discuss implications of our findings for theory on the psychology of power in organizations.

Authors

• Emily Sokolosky Blum, Texas A&M University

• Kris Hoang, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa