IS WORK-LIFE CONFLICT THE REASON FOR FEMALE AUDITORS
TO LEAVE THE AUDIT FIRM?
Master Thesis, Msc Accountancy
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business June 22, 2020 Charlotte Mondeel Studentnumber: S3170209 Kleine Bergstraat 12-1 9717NB Groningen 0628343372 charlotte.mondeel@student.rug.nl Supervisor: D. Veltrop Word count: 8411
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ABSTRACT
Auditor turnover (i.e. auditors leaving the audit firm) remains a significant problem for audit firms. An important reason for auditors to leave the audit firm is work-life conflict. In this study I focus on a core element of how audit work is organized, namely auditors working on multiple audit teams, and study how multiple team membership impact auditors’ work-life conflict and subsequently auditors’ turnover intention. Given that social role research demonstrates that women experience work-life conflict differently than men and that it is generally more challenging for women to combine work-life, I include auditor gender as a key moderator in my analyses. Specially, I expect that multiple team membership increases work-life conflict, particularly for female auditors. Regression analyses had been used to analyse the survey data that is filled in by 170 Dutch auditors. My results do indicate that work-life conflict is positively associated with turnover intention. However, in contrast to my expectation, the results also indicate that multiple team membership is associated with less work-life conflict. Furthermore, auditor gender does not appear to moderate the relationship between multiple team membership and work-life conflict. Nevertheless, followed-up moderated-mediation analyses reveal that male auditors do benefit more from multiple team membership than female auditors – male auditors experience even less work-life conflict and lower turnover intention from multiple team membership.
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INTRODUCTION
Turnover intention is a significant problem in audit firms (Chi, Hughen, Lin, & Lisic, 2013). Half of the graduated auditors who are working at an audit firm, leave within three years after they start (Chi et al, 2013). This is also seen in practice. Big-Four audit firms are struggling to fill staff shortages at different levels in the organization. Attracting and retaining young talented auditors also remains difficult (Isitman & Polman, 2019). Talented people leaving the audit firm can have a lot of consequences, for example decline in productivity, efficiency and in profits (Larkin, 1995). The input of good staff in audit firms is highly important because audit firms rely on human capital (Chang, 1999). When experienced auditors leave the audit firm, the firm must hire and train new employees and this entails a lot of costs (Chi et al, 2013). These new employees have lack of experience and knowledge in comparison with former employees (Huang, Lawler & Lei, 2007). This turnover problem can also have consequences for the audit quality. Audit quality can be defined as the probability that an auditor will discover a failure in the accounting system of the client and will report this failure (DeAngelo, 1981). The auditor must therefore have the skills and the experience to achieve this audit quality. If a lot of auditors leave the audit firm, there can be a threat that experienced and skilled auditors leave the audit firm. This could lead to reduced experience and skills in the audit teams and can have negative consequences for audit quality (Gertsson, Sylvander, Broberg & Friberg, 2017).
The past two decades, auditors have an increased interest in experiencing a good balance between work and personal life (Johnson, Jordan & Reckers, 2012). There are some social changes that lead to more interest in the topic work-life balance, namely the rise of dual earners and the change in traditional gender roles (Michel, Clark, Beiler, 2013). In comparison to other professions, the audit profession experiences high budget pressure, a lot of deadlines, and work overload (Haskins, Baglioni & Cooper, 1990). Auditors also often have to work overtime, especially in busy season (Sweeny & Summers, 2002). These long days and very demanding work pressures can lead to more work-life conflict, because the auditor must sacrifice personal life time for work time to meet these long days and very demanding work pressures (Yustina & Valerina, 2018). Work-life conflict can be defined as the difficulty to combine the non-work domain and the work domain (Keeney, Boyd, Sinha, Westring, & Ryan, 2013). Work-life conflict is a hot topic in the audit profession and can have negative consequences for the audit firms. One of these consequences is that auditors are frustrated about the perceived work-life conflict and want to reduce this conflict by leaving the organization (Pradana & Salehudin, 2015).
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The audit profession is a profession in which auditors often work on many different engagements simultaneously (Martinez-Leon, Olmedo-Cifuentes & Sanchez-Vidal, 2019). There are professional teams made for each engagement and this means that auditors work in multiple teams (Martinez-Leon et al, 2019). Working in multiple teams means working with different people, deadlines, procedures and working schedules (Martinez-Leon et al, 2019). Therefore, two working days are not often the same for auditors and this uncertainty and variability can increase the work-life conflict (Martinez-Leon et al, 2019). This strengthen the already mentioned long working hours and demanding deadlines of the audit profession.
Several studies have found that work-life conflict increase the turnover intention of female auditors (Law, 2010; Gammie & Whiting, 2013; Pasewark & Viator, 2006). There are differences in how men and women experience the work and family role and the associated pressures due to the gender characteristics (Parasuraman & Simmers, 2001). Men and women think different about the time and energy they want to divide over the different roles, and this can be explained by the social role theory of Eagly (1987). According to the social role theory, it is in the man’s nature to earn money for the family and this is also expected from the man. This means that men are more psychologically involved and spend more time and energy in their work than women. According to Bernardi & Hooks (2001), women have a lifestyle preference concerning family and work roles, namely spending more time to the family role. This lifestyle preference can also be explained by the social role theory of Eagly (1987), namely it is in the woman’s nature to take the responsibilities of the family role and this is also expected from the woman. The studies of Bernardi & Hooks (2001) and Parasuraman & Simmers (2001) are focused on work-family conflict. In this study the focus is on work-life conflict.
According to the global study Catalyst (2016), half of the sample of auditors were women, where 22 percent of these women occupy the highest levels of accounting. Another study gives the same results, namely 47 percent of the people that start as auditor are women, but only 24 percent of the partners and principals are women (Accounting MOVE Project, 2017). This can be seen as an indication that more women leave the audit firms than men. Pasewark & Viator (2006) also came with the conclusion that more women leave the audit profession than men. In this article they mentioned a study of Academic and Career Development Team of AICPA, and they are saying that 36 percent of the auditors were female in 2002. However, 55 percent of the auditors that leave the firm, were woman. With these results, it can be concluded that more women leave the audit firms than men.
Prior research studied if women experience more work-life conflict than men (Parasuraman & Simmers, 2001; Bernardi & Hooks, 2001). Prior research did not study how audit work is organized,
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namely working in multiple teams, lead to more work-life conflict and if this has a different impact on female auditors. The main research question in this study is: how does work-life conflict impact auditor turnover intention and what role does multiple team membership and auditor gender play in this respect? This study is valuable, because turnover intention can have great consequences for organizations as mentioned above. Especially in audit firms is this a significant problem. This study can give insights if this problem is a result of work-life conflict, and this can help audit firms to implement and manage strategies to reduce the turnover problem (Mitchell, Holtom & Lee, 2001; Pienaar, Sieberhagen, & Mostert, 2007). This study can also provide evidence if a unique element of audit work, multiple team membership, leads to more work-life conflict. Finally, this study can discover the reason why more women leave audit firms than men. If the relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict has more impact on female auditors than male auditors, this can influence the strategies the audit firm is implementing and managing concerning the turnover problem. This can help audit firms to keep talented women.
In the next section, I will explain my research question with relevant theories and reviewing literature. This is followed by the research method I employed, in this case a survey. After that, findings are presented and discussed. Eventually, the last section lists the conclusions and the implications.
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THEORY
Turnover intention
In the audit profession turnover intention is a significant problem and audit firms are struggling with reducing the costs (Hall & Smith, 2009). In the audit profession some turnover is natural because of their up or out system (Gertsson et al, 2017). However, voluntary turnover is a much greater problem in the audit profession (Smith, Emerson & Boster, 2018). The reason for this greater problem is the costs of voluntary turnover. These costs are meant for searching, selecting and training auditors to replace the auditors that have left the audit firm (Smith et al, 2018). Audit firms invest in recruiting and training employees and these investments disappear when an employee leaves the firm (Nouri & Parker, 2020). These costs are direct costs, but the indirect costs of losing valued auditors is more ambiguous. These indirect costs are reduced staff spirit, the loss of corporate knowledge, and more workload for the auditors that remain in the audit firm (Smith et al, 2018). Another indirect cost is that turnover of auditors can have an impact on clients, namely the decrease in client goodwill, trust and audit quality (Law, 2010). Many large audit firms report their turnover statistics in their annual audit quality report (Nouri & Parker, 2020). Companies who need an auditor may use the turnover information to choose an auditor (Nouri & Parker, 2020). If a potential client sees that the audit team of the audit firm changes from year to year, the potential client can be doubtful about the quality of the audit firm (Nouri & Parker, 2020).
A lot of research is done to search for factors that influence turnover intention among auditors: flexible work arrangements (Almer & Kaplan, 2002); organizational justice (Parker & Kohlmeyer, 2005); work-family conflict (Pasewark & Viator, 2006); mentoring (Hall & Smith, 2009) and burnout (Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads & Moore, 2000). In this study the focus is on the factor work-life conflict. It is important to search for factors that influence turnover intention, because these are the reasons why employees leave the firm (Surienty, Ramayah, Lo & Tarmizi, 2014). This is important, because turnover costs can lead to great losses for a firm as mentioned above.
Turnover intention can be defined as employees’ intention to leave a firm (Surienty et al, 2014). According to several researchers, the intention to leave the firm could be the final step before an employee decides to leave the firm or not (Bothma & Roodt, 2012). Therefore, turnover intention can be defined as the employees’ behavioral intention to leave the firm (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).
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Work-life conflict
As mentioned in the introduction, auditors work in an environment with long days and very demanding work pressures (Haskins et al, 1990; Sweeny & Summers, 2002). This work environment leads to pressures in the work role for auditors (Dalton, Hill & Ramsay, 1997). If auditors also have personal life obligations, the auditor will feel pressures in the work role and the personal life role (Dalton et al, 1997). The auditor has to make difficult choices between work and personal life obligations (Dalton et al, 1997). This can lead to work-life conflict, because the auditor must sacrifice personal life time for work time to fulfill the pressures at work (Yustina & Valerina, 2018).
Work-life balance can be defined as the balance between work and other personal dimensions, like family, partners and other relationships or interests (Evans, Jamie & Morgan, 2013). In other words, it is the balance between what we must do and what we prefer to do (Roberts, 2008). The opposite of work-life balance is work-life conflict. Work-life conflict is based on role conflict. Role conflict can be defined as the occurrence of two or more pressures simultaneously and compliance with one pressure makes it hard to comply with the other pressure (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek & Rosenthal, 1964). Interrole conflict is a form of role conflict whereby an individual participates in different roles (Kahn et al, 1964). According to Kahn et al (1964), interrole conflict is experienced when the pressures in one role are contradicting with the pressures of the other role. Based on the work of Kahn et al (1964) and the definition of work-family conflict of Greenhaus & Beutell (1985), work-life conflict can be defined as meeting the responsibilities in the work domain makes it difficult to meet the responsibilities in the non-work domain and the other way around. According to Collins (2007), the non-work domain is caring for children, elderly and the sick, and furthermore domestic tasks, acting as consumers, leisure activities or hobbies and home maintenance. According to McGinnity & Calvert (2009), the work domain is paid work. This deviation is also used in this study.
Work-life conflict and turnover intention
Work-life balance is an important factor for the consideration of employees to stay or leave the organization (Fayyazi & Aslani, 2015). Work-life balance is for example more important than factors such as management behavior or the amount of pay (Hughes & Bozinelos, 2007). Surienty et al (2014) confirms this, the amount of pay has not much value when the employee does not have time to spend this money.
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According to Pasewark & Viator (2006), role conflict has a positive effect on turnover intention among auditors. They are mentioning that sometimes the pressures in the family role are too high and this stimulates the auditor to leave the audit firm. Auditors are frustrated about the perceived work-life conflict and want to reduce this conflict (Pradana & Salehudin, 2015). An individual can react to the conflict by accepting some pressures and rejecting some (Kahn et al, 1964). Auditors can reduce this conflict by searching for another job where they experience no or less work-life conflict (Posig & Kickul, 2004). Auditors want to escape from the demanding working culture of the audit profession and want another job where there can be created a better work-life balance (Gammie & Whiting, 2013). This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1: Work-life conflict is positively associated with auditor turnover intention
Multiple team membership
According to O’Leary, Mortensen & Woolley (2011), 65% to 95% of the knowledge workers are working in multiple teams. Audit firms are also knowledge workers and they utilize audit teams for their activities (Cameran, Ditillo & Pettinicchio, 2018). Audit firms use audit teams because the audit work needs the use of different competencies and perspectives (Cameran et al, 2018). Auditors have multiple clients at the same time and are therefore engaged in multiple teams at the same time (Buchheit, Dalton & Harp, 2016). This means that auditors are engaged in multiple team membership. Multiple team membership can have consequences for the individual auditor and the audit firm. When an auditor works in multiple teams, he or she must figure out how to handle with the increasing workload, that is associated with multiple team membership, and therefore will focus on the most important activities what will lead to an increasing productivity (O’Leary et al, 2011). This is not always the case, because more variety is related to more information load and processing time at the individual level and this will decrease the productivity (O’Leary et al, 2011). The impact of multiple team membership on learning can also be positive and negative. When there is variety between several clients of the auditor, the auditor gets more knowledge about the different clients and this will increase learning (O’Leary et al, 2011). On the other hand, when there is too much variety between the clients, it is hard for the auditor to use the knowledge in different situations and to focus on new information (O’Leary et al, 2011). These conflicting consequences indicate that audit firms have to manage multiple team membership carefully to ensure that it will be positive for the firm (O’Leary et al, 2011).
Multiple team membership can be defined as membership interdependencies across teams (Margolis, 2019). Individuals are members of two or more teams at the same time for a given period
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(O’Leary et al, 2011). Multiple team membership looks like multi-tasking, but a bit more extensive (O’Leary et al, 2011). Multi-tasking includes task switching. Multiple team membership also includes task switching, as well as switching between team contexts. These team contexts consist of different tasks, roles, routines, technologies, locations, and so forth (O’Leary et al, 2011). Switching between those different team contexts requires more time and attention than switching between tasks only.
Multiple team membership and work-life conflict
Working in multiple teams can create overload or conflicting expectations because there are requirements of three levels: requirements from individual tasks, projects tasks and group meetings (Altschuller & Benbunan-Fich, 2017). Work overload increases with the number of projects, inadequate routines, inadequate time resources and with not a lot of opportunities for healing (Zika-Vikorsson, Sundström & Engwall, 2006). This is also the case in the audit profession. An auditor works in multiple teams and these multiple teams have several clients. All these clients have different deadlines and have different locations (Buchheit et al, 2016). The auditor must meet these deadlines and has to travel a lot to the different locations of the clients (Buchheit et al, 2016). Because the auditor works in multiple teams simultaneously, he or she has also multiple managers (Bagley, 2010). Auditors are held accountable to multiple managers and these managers have different preferences for performance (Bagley, 2010). All these varieties where the auditor has to deal with, will lead to an increasing work overload.
Work overload will lead to low compliance with time schedules, low development of skills, and high levels of stress (Zika-Vikorsson et al, 2006). This work overload can also lead to fragmentation of time (Pluut, Flestea, Curseu, 2014). This fragmentation of time will increase job strain (Pluut et al, 2014). This increasing job strain will have a positive effect on work-life conflict, because the pressures in the work domain become larger. The auditor already experiences work-life conflict due to the long days and the high work demands (Haskins et al, 1990; Sweeny & Summers, 2002). When an auditor works in a lot of multiple teams simultaneously, it will strengthen the already felt pressures of the work environment of the audit profession. The auditor must deal with more workload in the working domain and this is more than he or she already felt. If the private life role also has expectations, it is difficult for the auditor to meet these expectations because the pressures in the work role are too high. According to Kahn et al (1964) an individual experience a role conflict when the pressure of one role are conflicting with the pressures of the other role, this means that the roles are difficult to execute at the same time. From this, it can be concluded that an auditor experiences more work-life conflict when there is multiple
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team membership, because it becomes harder for the auditor to execute the work and private life role at the same time. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H2: The number of multiple team memberships an auditor is engaged in is positively associated to work-life conflict
The multiple team membership where auditors are engaged in, is positively associated to work-life conflict because the expectations in the work role are too high. These expectations make it hard to fulfill also the expectations in the private life role. This leads to work-life conflict, because the expectations of the two roles cannot be fulfilled at the same time. An option for reducing the conflict can be to search for another job where the individual experience no work-life conflict anymore. This job should not have multiple team membership, because this is positively associated to work-life conflict. The leads to the following mediating effect:
H3: The relationship between the number of multiple team memberships an auditor is engaged, and turnover intention is mediated by auditor work-life conflict
The moderating role of auditor gender
As mentioned in the introduction, a lot of female auditors leave audit firms. This has negative consequences for the audit profession. One of these negative consequences of losing female auditors is that the audit firm experience problems with creating a gender-diverse workplace (Law, 2010). Another consequence for the audit firm is a loss of human capital (Law, 2010). Human capital can be defined as education, vocational training, experience and skills (Becker, 1993). Human capital ensures for higher earnings and individuals get higher returns on their work (Becker, 1993). Female auditors have these human capital aspects and therefore the departure of a female auditor has an impact on the human capital of the audit firm (Law, 2010).
According to several studies, work-life conflict is a reason for female auditors to leave the audit firm (Law, 2010; Gammie & Whiting, 2013; Pasewark & Viator, 2006). The expectation of female auditors is not only that they have a job and sustain their careers, but also that they must care for their families and private life (Law, 2010). This can be explained by the social role theory of Eagly (1987). The social role theory is about the sex differences and similarities in social behavior of men and women. According to the social role theory women and men have typical gender characteristics and are expected to behave according to these characteristics, also called gender roles.
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According to the social role theory, the differences in how men and women behave arise from the formation of gender roles (Eagly, 1987). These gender roles ensure that men and women are expected to have characteristics and that they are expected to use these characteristics to execute tasks. The gender roles arise from the division of labor, these are the different social roles that are occupied by men and women (Eagly, Wood & Diekman, 2000). From the past, men execute tasks that require speed, strength, and the ability to be away from home for a certain period of time. Women execute family tasks and stay home, like child caring. Because of these social roles, there arise gender role beliefs and this become stereotypic for men and women (Eagly, 1987). Men are observed and expected to have agentic characteristics and woman communal characteristics. Agentic characteristics are aggressive, assertive, independence and self-confidence (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Communal characteristics are concerning about others, helping others, accepting others’ opinion, and maintaining relationships (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Gender roles are both descriptive and prescriptive (Eagly, 1987). Descriptive means how men and women do behave. This descriptive side arise from the behavior that is observed in the different social roles that men and women occupy (Eagly, 1987). Prescriptive means how men and women should behave. This means that men and women still should behave according to the behavior of the observed social roles from the past (Eagly, 1987). The prescriptive side also means that men and women are punished by the society for not behaving what is expected from them. Women are expected to engage in feminine gender roles that reflects communal behavior and not agentic behavior (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Men are expected to engage in male gender roles that reflect agentic behavior and not communal behavior (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Men and women are pushed in a social role because of the gender role beliefs (Eagly, 1987). Because of these social roles, men and women do and are expected to behave differently (Eagly, 1987). Therefore, men still do and are expected to take the role of the breadwinner and the women still do and are expected to care for the children and do domestic activities (Chung & Lippe, 2018).
These days, the division of labor becomes weaker (Eagly & Wood, 2012). The physical sex differences are less important, because there are fewer children born and executing economically productive activities are less depending on strength and size. Also, there is a rise in working women (Michel et al, 2013). These changes have increased the access of women to more social roles (Eagly & Wood, 2012). Consequently, it is not usual anymore that the male occupies the role of the breadwinner and the female the role of doing domestic activities and caring for the children. The traditional roles are faded. But still, women want to behave according to the gender role beliefs, like the domestic and family caring activities (Gammie & Whiting, 2013). The family and domestic activities are still expected to be the central domain of women (Sanchez-Vidal, Cegarra-Leiva & Cross, 2019). Therefore, women
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experience more work-life conflict because they are expected to prefer family over work and therefore experience more pressure than men in the personal life domain (Sanchez-Vidal et al, 2019).
An auditor experiences more work-life conflict due to multiple team membership. Multiple team membership leads to more pressures in the work role as explained above. According to the social role theory of Eagly (1987) it is still expected from the women to behave according to the feminine gender role. This means that women are pushed in a social role, namely caring for family and doing domestic activities. Because women are pushed in this social role, they experience pressure to execute this role. Therefore, it is hard for women to also execute the work role with the high demands of the multiple team membership. Women have both pressures in the work role due to multiple team membership and pressures in the personal life role due to the gender role beliefs. However, men are still expected to behave according to the male gender role. He is pushed in the social role of the breadwinner. Men have thus less pressures in the personal life role and have only pressures in the work role due to multiple team membership and their gender role beliefs. Therefore, it is reasonable that women experience more work-life conflict due to multiple team membership because they experience not only pressures of the work role but also of the personal life role. This makes it even harder for women to execute these two roles at the same time in comparison with men who have only the pressures of multiple team membership. This leads to the following moderating effect:
H4: Auditor gender moderates the relationship between the number of team memberships an auditor is engaged in and work-life conflict, such that this relationship is stronger for female auditors
By extension, the moderating role of gender between multiple team membership and work-life conflict is combined with the meditation role of work-life conflict between multiple team membership and turnover intention. This leads to the following moderated-mediation hypothesis:
H5: The indirect relationship between the number of team memberships an auditor is engaged in and turnover intention is stronger for female auditors.
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METHOD
Data Collection
Within this study a survey has been used to collect the data. The sample consist of auditors in the Netherlands, who were personally approached by a group of six master students of the University of Groningen. The sample consist of auditors that are working at different organizations in different places in the Netherlands. These auditors perform various functions. There was only one requirement: the auditor must have at least two years of experience in the audit. The auditors have been informed about the use of the data and anonymity is guaranteed. The survey was sent out by email and followed up with two reminders in April 2020. Because the respondents were Dutch, the questions in the survey were translated from English to Dutch. 170 auditors have filled in the survey, this is a response rate of 88 percent. However, one auditor has indicated his or her age by ten. The data of this auditor is removed, given that auditors cannot have an age of ten. This results in a final sample of 169 auditors. The sample consist of 47 female auditors and 122 male auditors.
Measures
Dependent variable
Turnover intention was measured by the turnover intention scale of Dalton, Davis & Viator (2015). This scale was already used in the study of Viator & Pasewark (2005). The items include: “I often think about leaving the firm I work for”; “I will probably look for a job outside of the firm I work for within the next 3 years”; “I am tempted to investigate other job openings”. These items are measured by a 7-point-Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The average of these three items is calculated to create one measure of turnover intention (α = .906).
Independent variable
Multiple Team Membership was measured by the number of engagements the auditor performed work activities for during a specific time period (O’Leary et al, 2011). The auditors were asked to indicate on how many audit engagements the auditor performed work activities for during the last three months. The average of multiple team membership is 9.518, and the standard deviation is 13.405. The log is taking from this variable because the measure is highly skewed.
Moderating variable
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Mediator
Work-life conflict was measured by an adapted version of the work-family conflict scale of Netemeyer, Boles & McMurrian (1996). This work-family conflict scale is adapted to also reflect work-life conflict for auditors who have no partner, no children and/or are living alone (Keeney et al, 2013)1. The
work-family conflict scale of Netemeyer et al (1996) is only used by Dahm, Glomb, Manchester & Leroy (2015). The items include: “The demands of my work interfere with my home and family life”; “The amount of time my job takes up makes it difficult to fulfill family responsibilities”; “Things I want to do at home do not get done because of the demands of my job puts on me”; “My job produces strain that makes it difficult to fulfill duties at home”; “Due to work-related duties, I have to make changes to my plans for activities at home”. These items were measured by a 7-point-Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The average of these five items is calculated to create one measure of work-life conflict (α = .899).
Control variables
The control variables that were used in this study are tenure, seniority, age and parenthood. According to several studies, tenure and seniority are negative associated with turnover intention (Gregson, 1990; Mynatt, Omundson, Schroeder & Stevens, 1997; Rash and Harrell, 1990). These studies say, when an individual works for a long time in the firm or an individual has a high position within the firm, this will lead to lower turnover intention. According to Maden (2014), long-tenured employees have less the intention to leave the organization because they have made certain costs over a period of time. They have acquired some side bets, sunk costs, or investment in their organization and this makes it hard for them to leave the organization (Maden, 2014). The respondents indicate their tenure with the firm in years and months and seniority in levels (1= starter; 2= junior; 3= medior, 4= senior; 5= very senior; 6= partner).
Age is also negatively associated with turnover intention. Younger employees are more likely to take the risk and to move to another organization when a better job comes available, even if this means to sacrifice the benefits that are acquired in the current job (Peltokorpi, Allen & Froese, 2015). Older employees are more resistant in moving to another organization for a better job, because they are
1 The original version of work-family conflict measure was developed for a US-setting in which “family” is a more central
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more sensitive to sacrifice their benefits with the current organization (Peltokorpi et al, 2015). The respondents indicate their age in years.
Parenthood is positively associated with work-life conflict (Crompton & Lyonette, 2006). If there are children in the household, this leads to more responsibilities in the private life role and therefore leads to more work-life conflict (Crompton & Lyonette, 2006). The auditors have indicated their answer by choosing between 1 = unmarried and no children; 2 = unmarried and children; 3 = registered partner and no children; 4 = registered partner and children; 5 = married and no children; 6 = married and children. There is made a dummy variable to measure parenthood, where having children is 1 and having no children is 0.
Data analysis
The multiple regression method is used to test the hypotheses 1, 2 and 4. With this multiple regression method, the relation between the dependent and independent variables is seen. Process macro
developed by Hayes (2018) is used to test hypotheses 3 and 5. With this process macro, the mediation and moderated-mediation effect are tested by bootstrapping.
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RESULTS
Table 1
Correlations and Descriptive Statistics
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. Age 32.82 8.25 2. Tenure 7.67 6.68 .73** 3. Parenthood 0.32 0.48 .79** .60** 4. Seniority 3.90 1.20 .80** .71** .70** 5. MTM 1.69 1.85 .28** .18* .16* .22** 6. Gender 0.28 0.45 -.15 -.18 -.09 -.17* -.11 7.Work-life conflict 4.12 1.30 -.18* -.11 -.14 -.21** -.19* .12 8.Turnover intention 3.35 1.67 -.34** -.31** -.31** -.34** -.25** -.02 .29**
Note: MTM = multiple team membership N = 169.
*p ≤ 0.05 (two-tailed) **p ≤ 0.01 (two-tailed)
In table 1, the descriptive statistics and the correlations are provided. Age, tenure, parenthood and seniority are correlated with work-life conflict or turnover intention or both, this means that the control variables are related to the dependent variables. As expected, work-life conflict is significantly positively correlated with turnover intention (r = .29, p ≤ .01). However, against my expectation multiple team membership is significantly negatively correlated with work-life conflict (r = -.19, p ≤ .05). Table 1 also shows whether there is multicollinearity between the independent variables. This table shows that all independent variables are not greater than .7, thus there is no multicollinearity. The regression tables show the highest variance inflation factor (VIF) for each model. This VIF should be lower than ten to have no problem of multicollinearity (Craney & Surles, 2002). As the regression tables show, the VIF’s of all the models are lower than ten and this means there is no problem of multicollinearity.
The regression analysis has been shown in table 2. According to hypothesis 1, work-life conflict is positively associated with turnover intention. Model 5 tested the relation between work-life conflict and turnover intention. According to this model, there is a positive significant relationship between work-life conflict and turnover intention, B = 0.30, p ≤ 0.001. This means that an increase in work-life conflict will lead to an increase in turnover intention. This result is consistent with hypothesis 1.
According to hypothesis 2, multiple team membership is positively associated with work-life conflict. Model 2 in table 2 tested the effect of the independent variables, multiple team membership
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and gender, on work-life conflict. According to this model, there is a negative significant relationship between multiple team membership and work-life conflict, B = -0.18, p ≤ 0.05. This means that an increase in multiple team membership will lead to a decrease in work-life conflict. This result is inconsistent with hypothesis 2.
Table 2 Regression Analysis
Work-life conflict Turnover intention
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
Constant 5.41*** 4.99*** 4.95*** 5.10*** 3.46*** Control Variables Age -0.17 -0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.02 Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.02 -0.02 -0.03 Parenthood 0.09 -0.01 -0.03 -0.28 -0.31 Seniority -0.24 -0.22 -0.22 -0.19 -0.12 Independent variables MTM -0.18* -0.23† Gender 0.24 0.25 MTM x Gender 0.11 Work-life conflict 0.30*** R2 0.05 0.08 0.08 0.14*** 0.19*** VIF 4.32 4.51 4.59 4.32 4.33 Note: †p ≤ 0.10 *p ≤ 0.05 **p ≤ 0.01 ***p ≤ 0.001 N = 169
One-tailed tests for hypothesized variables, two-tailed tests for control variables.
According to hypothesis 3, the relationship between multiple team membership and turnover intention is mediated by work-life conflict. This mediation effect is shown in table 4. The indirect effect of multiple team membership on turnover intention through work-life conflict is estimated by bootstrapping procedures. Problems that occur from non-normal distribution of mediated effects are avoided by bootstrap analyses (Edwards & Lambert, 2007). For the analyses in table 4 and 5, the PROCESS macro with 5000 bootstraps is used (Hayes, 2018). With these analyses, the 90 percent confidence interval is used because the hypotheses are tested one-tailed. In table 4, the 90 percent confidence interval does not include zero for work-life conflict (-0.071, -0.010). This means that the relationship between multiple team membership and turnover intention is mediated by work-life conflict. However, this effect is negative. This means that an increase in multiple team membership will lead to a decrease in turnover intention through a reduction in work-life conflict. This result is inconsistent with hypothesis 3.
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According to hypothesis 4, the relationship between multiple team membership and work-life conflict is moderated by auditor gender such that the relationship between multiple team membership and work-life conflict is stronger for female auditors. Model 3 in table 2 tested the effect of the interaction of multiple team membership and gender on work-life conflict. According to this model, there is no significant moderation effect, B = 0.11, p = 0.30. This result is inconsistent with hypothesis 4. There is conducted additional analysis to search for a significant moderation effect. This is seen in the additional analysis section.
Table 4
Bootstrap Analysis Result for Indirect Effect of MTM on Turnover Intention through Work-Life Conflict
Boot indirect effect Boot SE Boot Lower CI Boot Upper CI
Work-Life Conflict -0.028 0.022 -0.071 -0.010
Note: CI = 90% confidence interval (cf. one-tailed test at 95%). Bootstrap sample size = 5,000; N =
169.
According to hypothesis 5, the indirect relationship between the number of team memberships an auditor is engaged in and turnover intention is stronger for female auditors. The indirect effects of gender where calculated for female and male. These indirect effects are calculated by bootstrapping. The results are shown in table 5. In table 5, the 90 percent confidence interval does include zero for female auditors (-0.143, 0.047) and the indirect effect is negative. This means, there is no significant moderated-mediation effect for female auditors. Furthermore, this indirect effect is negative, and the expectation was positive. However, the 90 percent confidence interval does not include zero for male auditors (-0.093, -0.001) and the indirect effect is negative. This means, there is a significant negative moderated-mediation effect for male auditors. These results are inconsistent with the hypothesis 5 and indicate that the negative indirect effect (multiple team membership reducing turnover intention via work-life conflict) appears to be driven by the male subsample of auditors.
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Table 5
Bootstrap Analysis Result for Conditional Indirect Effect of MTM on Turnover Intention through Work-life conflict at Different Levels of Gender
Gender Boot indirect effect
Boot SE Boot Lower CI Boot Upper CI
Female -0.018 0.059 -0.143 0.047
Male -0.034 0.031 -0.093 -0.001
Note: CI = 90% confidence interval (cf. one-tailed test at 95%). Bootstrap sample size = 5,000; N =
169.
Additional analysis
To further explore whether gender truly does not have a moderating effect, I have combined the female dummy with parenthood indicators (initially included as a control variable). This leads to the new moderator: female parent. According to the social role theory of Eagly (1987), women experience more pressures in the private life role due to the gender role beliefs. According to Cromptom & Lyonette (2006), children in the household lead to more responsibilities in the private life role. Therefore, the expectation is that the combination of a female auditor with children will give a better moderation effect on the relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict than the moderation effect of the female auditor only. From the 47 female auditors, 12 female auditors have children. The results of the moderator female parent are presented in table 6. The results show that the moderation effect of female parent on the relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict is positive but still insignificant, B = 0.67, p = 0.25. This means, there is still no moderation effect found. But these results are perhaps the result of the small number of female auditors with children in my sample (n=12).
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Table 6
Additional Regression on Work-life conflict Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Constant 5.31*** 5.15*** 5.25*** Control variables Age -0.01 -0.01 -0.01 Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.03 Seniority -0.23 -0.23 -0.23 Independent variables MTM -0.19* -0.19* Female parent 0.22 0.09 MTM x Female parent 0.67 R2 0.05* 0.07 0.07 VIF 3.22 3.45 3.70 Note: †p ≤0 .10 *p ≤ 0.05 **p ≤ 0.01 ***p ≤ 0.001 N = 169
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DISCUSSION
Turnover intention is a significant problem in audit firms and hiring and training of new auditors entails a lot of costs. Therefore, it is important that audit firms create a safe and stimulating work environment with an attractive future perspective for the new generation of auditors (NBA, 2020). Work-life balance plays an important role in this (NBA, 2020). Therefore, this study examined the relationship between work-life conflict and audit turnover intention and the role of multiple team membership and auditor gender in this relation. This study used a survey, that is filled in by 170 auditors in the Netherlands, to answer the research question. The first expectation was that when an auditor experiences more work-life conflict, he or she is more likely to leave the audit firm. This relation was expected because prior research indicated that auditors can reduce the work-life conflict by rejecting some pressures and therefore can choose to leave the audit firm (Pradana & Salehudin, 2015: Pasewark & Viator, 2006; Posig & Kickul, 2004). The results also indicate that this is the case, namely the results show a positive significant relation between work-life conflict and turnover intention. This result has an implication for the research regarding turnover intention because it showed that work-life conflict indeed can be a factor that influence turnover intention among Dutch auditors.
Another expectation was that when an auditor works in multiple teams simultaneously, he or she experiences more work-life conflict. This relation was expected because prior research indicated that working in multiple teams lead to more variety and work overload, and therefore will increase the job strain (Pluut et al, 2014). However, the results indicate that this appears to be the other way around. The results indicate that multiple team membership has a significant negative effect on work-life conflict. From this result can be concluded that when an auditor works in multiple teams simultaneously, he or she experiences less work-life conflict. An explanation for this effect may be that although multiple team membership can increase the individual overload because of the increasing effort and time commitments, multiple team membership can reduce this individual overload because of the increasing knowledge, information and support (Marrone, Tesluk & Carson, 2007). For example, the auditor can work in a lot of teams simultaneously but for similar clients. When this is the case, the increasing knowledge and information of a client can help the auditor to do the work more effectively at a similar client. Because the auditor can do the work more effectively, it will decrease the job strain. The above paragraph mentioned that work-life conflict is positively associated with turnover intention. Because of this finding and the finding of the negative relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict, it is reasonable that the relation between multiple team membership and turnover intention is negatively mediated by work-life conflict. This is also what the results indicate. From the
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results can be concluded that when auditors work in multiple teams simultaneously, they experience less work-life conflict and therefore are less likely to leave the audit firm. These results are different than expected, but it can have implications to the research field. This study can give new insights in the concept of multiple team membership among auditors, namely that it can have a positive effect on the individual auditor resulting in less work-life conflict. Because the auditor experiences less work-life conflict, he or she is less likely to leave the firm. Thus, this study shows that multiple team membership can reduce the turnover problem by reducing work-life conflict among auditors.
Also, the expectation was that the relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict is moderated by a female auditor. This means that when an auditor is a woman, multiple team membership will lead to even more work-life conflict. The expectation is based on the idea of the social role theory of Eagly (1987). The results indicated that there was no moderation effect of the female auditor. There is done an additional analysis to see if a new moderator will result in a significant moderation effect. The gender dummy is combined with parenthood as the new moderator. Also, this additional analysis showed no moderation effect. Because of this result and the result of the negative effect of multiple team membership on work-life conflict, the last hypothesis cannot be accepted either. The last expectation was that when an auditor is a woman, multiple team membership will lead to even more work-life conflict and therefore will increase turnover intention. However, the results showed that there is a significant negative moderated-mediation effect for male auditors. This means that when the auditor is a man, multiple team membership will lead to less work-life conflict and therefore will decrease turnover intention. An explanation for not finding the moderation effect of a female auditor, may be that the sample consist of less women than men and even less women with children. Another explanation, for the finding that there is a significant moderated-mediation effect for male auditors, may be the gender role beliefs of Eagly (1987) regarding learning of multiple team membership. As mentioned above, multiple team membership lead to less work-life conflict due to its learning aspect. According to the gender role beliefs of Eagly (1987), men should be more assertive and women more communal. These differences in behaviour ensure for a different learning style of men and women (Kaenzig, Hyatt & Anderson, 2007). Because of the communal behaviour, women experience lack of confidence, fear, self-doubt, inability to contain newness, and feelings of estrangement (Gallos, 1995b). Consequently, women think that they perform and learn less than they actually do (Kaenzig et al, 2007). Therefore, men benefit more from the positive effect of learning of multiple team membership and thus experience less work-life conflict. This result has an implication to the research of multiple team membership, because this study shows that the benefit of multiple team membership differs for men and women.
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Practical implications
The auditors are the capital of the audit firm of today and of the future (CTA, 2020). Therefore, it is important that the audit profession becomes and remains attractive (CTA, 2020). Audit firms must realize that human capital is one of the most valuable assets of the firm and that this leads to the success of the firm (Alniacik, Cigerim, Akcin & Bayram, 2011). This study found that work-life conflict leads to more turnover intention and therefore can be concluded that work-life balance is an important factor for retain talented auditors. Therefore, audit firms should ensure that all employees enjoy a good work-life balance. Audit firms can do this by implementing training programs and workshops about work-work-life balance. Audit firms should ensure for an open communication culture, where work-life balance is negotiable. In this study it is not found that multiple team membership lead to more work-life conflict. If life balance is negotiable, it can become clear to audit firms which factors do lead to more work-life conflict. Also, audit firms can ensure for a good work-work-life balance by implementing flexible work arrangements.
Multiple team membership must be properly managed, because of the positive and negative consequences for the audit firm. In this study is found that when auditors work in multiple teams simultaneously, they experience less work-life conflict. Already mentioned is that the explanation for this can be that auditors work for similar clients, get more knowledge about these clients and can use this knowledge with other similar clients. Audit firms can use this information to decrease the work-life conflict that is experienced by auditors and therefore reduce the turnover problem. Audit firms can for example ensure that auditors work in teams with similar clients. Another finding in this study about multiple team membership is that men benefit more from multiple team membership than women. Already mentioned is that the explanation for this can be that men and women have different learning styles. Audit firms can use this information to pay more attention to the learning style of women, for example by providing training in the field of learning style. Audit firms should ensure that women benefit just as much of multiple team membership as men.
Limitations and future research
There are some limitations of the study. Firstly, multiple team membership is measured by the number of engagements the auditor performed activities for. In this study is found the negative relation between multiple team membership and work-life conflict. This negative relation can be explained by the learning aspect of multiple team membership. Like mentioned before, when auditors perform engagements for similar clients, they get knowledge about that kind of client and can do their work
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more effectively. Further research can look deeper in the concept of multiple team membership by asking the auditor not only the number of engagements but also for what type of client, also called sector, the engagement is performed for. Further research can maybe then explain the negative relation between multiple membership and work-life conflict better.
Secondly, this study is based on survey data for the explanation of turnover intention. This gives a problem because the auditors who have filled in the survey have not made the actual decisions to leave the firm or not. This makes it difficult to say if the intentions of the auditor are actual behaviour (Sutton, 1998). Further research can use a sample of auditors who actually have left the firm to see if work-life conflict is still the reason for auditors to leave the audit firm.
Thirdly, the survey is sent during busy season and therefore the results of work-life conflict could be biased. In busy season auditors experience more workload (Sweeny & Summers, 2002), thus this can lead to more work-life conflict and therefore auditors may be more willing to leave the audit firm. Further research can send the survey during another time period than busy season and see if this gives other results. In a quieter period, the auditors experience less workload. This less experienced work-load can decrease the work-life conflict and therefore auditors may be more willing to stay at the audit firm.
Fourth, the survey is sent during Covid19 crisis and therefore a lot of Dutch auditors work at home. For this reason, the results can also be biased because working at home can lead to more work-life conflict or just less work-work-life conflict. Although working at home can reduce time pressures because there is more time for personal life activities, it can also lead to more work-life conflict (Russell, O’Connell & McGinnity, 2009). Individuals experience more work-life conflict because they find it difficult to leave work at work, because work interference with personal life (Russell et al, 2009). Further research can send the survey when everyone is back at the office to see if this leads to more or less work-life conflict.
Fifth, this study is only done in the Netherlands and it may be difficult to generalize to other countries. The Netherlands is a modern country where a lot of women are working and where traditional roles are faded, but there are also other countries where the traditional roles are still seen. According to several studies, women experience more work-life conflict in counties where the gender equality is low (Korabik, Lero, Bardoel & Hammer, 2014; Lyness & Judiesch, 2014; Ruppanner & Huffman, 2013). Further research can look to other countries where the gender equality is low, to see if in these countries female auditors experience more work-life conflict.
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Lastly, the survey consists of less female auditors than male auditors. Furthermore, there were even fewer female auditors with children in the additional analysis. Because of this, the results can be biased. Further research can use a bigger sample, where the deviation between men and women is more equal. Maybe then a moderation effect of female auditors between multiple team membership and work-life conflict can be found.
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