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Are Mentored auditors satisfied auditors?The effects of mentoring roles on the job satisfaction of auditors Master’s thesis Accountancy and Controlling
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
Author: Erik van Marle e.j.van.marle@student.rug.nl s2344750 Supervisor: dr. D. B. Veltrop
Second assessor: S. Girdhar Date: June 25, 2018
1. Abstract
Building on the research in mentoring and job traits for employees this study looks into the effects of mentoring on job satisfaction among audit professionals. This quantitative study is carried out in the Netherlands studying data
derived from surveys among 139 audit professionals. Theory research proposed a positive effect of the guidance role of mentoring on job satisfaction and a moderating effect by professional tenure. Using quantitative data analysis the results showed a linear relation between job satisfaction and mentoring however lacked the backing for
a moderating role of tenure. Additional testing provided a negative relationship between mentoring and intentions to leave showing no sign of a moderating effect for tenure as well. Methodological issues and future research needs
are also discussed. 2. Introduction
During the rise of trading and manufacturing companies in the eighteenth century a need emerged for checking numbers published by companies on reliability. This resulted in a switch from accounting to auditing, leading to the development of a new profession (Matthews, 2006). Auditors found their way into the financial systems as trusted advisors. They provide a service satisfying the need to close the information asymmetry between board members of companies and shareholders and other stakeholders of a firm. This information problem is commonly referred to as the agency problem (Watts and Zimmerman, 1983). In the following centuries the demand for audits increased as a result of increased complexity of the accounts (Moyer, 1951). Although listed companies with multiple anonymous shareholders already engaged with chartered accountants in the late 19th century, the Companies Act of 1900 changed the playing field. The start of legislation has led to a century where auditing matured and individual accounting firms merged slowly towards a select group of large international auditing firms and many smaller firms (Chandler and Edwards, 1996). In the last hundred years the rules implemented to regulate audits were focused on improving the relevance and quality of the audit profession to serve society and help develop it into what it is today. Although the 20th century is marked as the era where the auditing profession matured, several scandals shook the auditing practice. These scandals were followed by rules and legislation for the profession in efforts to improve the quality of audits, in modern times the focus is gradually shifting from building accounting rulebooks towards
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understanding and shaping the person of the auditor (Chandler and Edwards, 1996; Bazerman, 2011). This is important to notice as the awareness is growing that rules can’t solve it all, professional judgement is a big factor in the work of an auditor that cannot be included in legislation applicable to every situation (Bazermans, 2011). A problem experienced by many auditing organizations is the high staff turnover, with statistics suggesting half of the audit assistants leave the profession within three years (Hiltebeitel and Leauby, 2001). Although this must be seen in the perspective of the pyramid shape of the audit organizations (Grey 1998), the turnover of young audit professionals could potentially prove harmful to audit quality (Chi et al., 2013). Bullen and Flamhotz (1985) argue that job satisfaction is one of the determinants of employee turnover. Ultimately audit firms will have to retain their personnel to avoid a decrease in audit quality and higher audit cost associated with the turnover of highly-trained audit personnel (Hill, Metzger and Wermert. 1994). Nowadays, where the demand for Big Four1 and other audit firms is higher than the amount of skilled auditors on the market, retention of auditors inside audit firms has taken in a prominent role (Dennis, 2006). Audit firms are increasingly acknowledging the importance of auditor wellbeing in their annual reports and the Big Four audit firms have implemented mentoring programs for auditors to help auditors navigate through their career as an auditor (Moyes, 2006). A strong bond between mentor and protégé can mean the difference between losing talent or retaining it as is suggested by Banerjee and Reio (2015). It would be useful to auditing firms to analyze findings from an audit setting, mentoring could be crucial to satisfying auditors and convince them to become or remain part of the audit profession.Mentoring is important for the functioning of auditors (Viator, 2001; Westermann, 2015). Scandura and Viator (1994) analyze mentoring in public accounting firms and conclude that mentoring benefits the mentor, protégé and the firm. It is known that positive mentor relationships are linked to multiple career characteristics such as reduced stress, increased job satisfaction, career progress expectations, increased organization commitment and reduced intentions to leave (Siegel, 2001). Furthermore, mentoring is beneficial for audit organizations, which employ future chartered accountants as they learn the system faster and show less desire to resign when enjoying positive mentor experiences (Ostroff and Kozlowski, 1993; Scandura and Viator, 1994).
previous studies looking into potential benefits of mentoring for auditors undervalues the career stages of the auditor. It would be valuable for audit firms if they can obtain knowledge on the topic of mentoring roles in different tenure for auditors as the different results might show needs that deviate from the trend. Having the possibility to research this among auditors in the Netherlands provides this paper with renewed insights that are practically implacable in the process of composing mentoring programs in audit firms. In this study the alleged positive benefits of mentoring relations will be measured in different levels of tenure. The addition of this thesis will be connecting the known positive benefits of mentoring to the desirable effect of job satisfaction in relation to the professional tenure of the auditor. The previous results in the following research question:
‘How does the organizational tenure of auditors influence the relation between the role of mentoring and job satisfaction?’
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3. Theory3.1 Mentoring functions
The term mentor is derived from the Greek mythology of odyssey where the goddess Athena disguised herself as ‘Mentor’ to help Telemachus deal with personal problems. Nowadays, a mentor is considered to be a person who possesses a great amount of knowledge to teach and guide from (Swap, 2001). A mentoring relationship is a developmental connection between a more experienced mentor and a less experienced protégé (Kram, 1988). In the work environment mentors use their experience to guide other, less experienced, employees in the organization to a higher level and increase their knowledge so they can become mentors for another generation.
Mentoring theory was developed by Kram (1985) in her article ‘’Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organisational life’’. This theory about the functions of mentoring in the workplace is used as a base by many following researchers. According to Kram (1988) the function of a mentor is career- and psychosocial support. Career support includes helping protégés obtaining desired clients, helping protégés solving important tasks, providing visibility for the protégé within the firm and among clients and sheltering them from harmful situations. The psychosocial function includes friendship and counseling the protégé in times of concerns and anxieties (Kram, 1988). Mentoring can help with six factors personnel growing into management or leadership roles must learn: Organization politics, norms, standards, values, ideology and history of the organization (Allen, 2004)
Professional organizations developed interest in mentoring when studies linked it to career success, personal growth, leadership development, productivity and more beneficial effects (Fagenson, 1989; Whitey and Dougherty, 1991; Chao, Walz and Gadner, 1992). Mentoring research in the nineties emerged and was primarily focused on tangible outcomes such as career progress measured in promotion rates and compensation for mentored and non-mentored employees (Dreher and Ash, 1990; Scandura 1992). Later studies also engaged in measuring more subjective outcomes of mentoring such as perceived career success, job involvement, job satisfaction, intention to leave and organizational commitment, among other outcomes (Koberg et al., 1998; Scandura and Viator, 1994). Mentoring is perceived to be very relevant in auditing firms for the reason that auditing is a craft learned by experience and the fact that quality in auditing organizations depends on the person of the auditor (Dirsmith and Covaleski., 1985). In literature a distinction is made between informal and formal mentoring. With informal mentoring the mentor and protégé choose each other and prioritize friendship over learning and career (Inzer and Crawford, 2005). Informal mentoring relationships are common among society and organizations but have the limitation of occurring naturally and depending on the willingness to invest of mentors and protégés. Organizations choose for formal mentoring relations where mentors and protégé’s are formally matched in mentoring programs. Mentoring provides a supportive environment for learning and growth to occur (Inzer and Crawford, 2005).
3.2 Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is extensively researched over the years, yet only a limited number of papers focus on auditors. Robert Strawser is a pioneer researcher who published about job satisfaction among accountants (Strawser, Ivancevich and Lyon 1969; Ivancevich and Strawser 1969; Francis and Strawser, 1970; Strawser, Ivancevich and
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Herbert, 1971). The first studies in the field of job satisfaction focus on need fulfillment. Over the years focus has shifted towards the cognitive process from the underlying needs (Moyes, 2006). Researchers indicated associations between attributes, ranging from compensation and promotion to the satisfaction with the type of work performed (Spector, 1985; Kacmar and Ferris, 1989). Identifying the triggers of satisfaction is essential to firms in their efforts to retain satisfied employees.Job satisfaction is defined as the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one's job values (Locke, 1969). Prior studies have linked all kinds of benefits of mentoring to auditors such as lower turnover intentions, sometimes directly (Scandura and Viator, 1994). Yet also with job satisfaction as mediator (Van Vianen et al. 2018). Mentoring has proven influential for tangible career outcomes such as promotion and compensation on one side and multiple subjective career outcomes such as career satisfaction, commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions on the other (Allen et al., 2004). Investigating subjective career traits is important as they positively correlate with tangible outcomes. Such as a positive relations between career satisfaction and promotions and salary (Seibert, Crant and Kraimer, 1999).
The research on the relationship between job satisfaction and mentoring is not extensive. Herbohn (2004) states that this is surprising as job satisfaction is important in itself and is directly and indirectly related to work motivation and job-related performance. Although stated that satisfaction may be correlated with employee behavior, it does not imply that satisfaction causes the behavior (Lawler and Porter, 1969). However, Herbohn (2004) argues that even though satisfaction is not a part of the causal chain, the correlation with behavior may provide a useful symptom of or clue to organizational dysfunction or it may affect work-related behavior indirectly (Balzer et al. 1990). This results in the first hypothesis to be tested in this study:
H1: Mentoring is positively related to auditor job satisfaction. 3.3 Moderating role of tenure
Hall (1988) and Schein (1971) indicate in their researches that the role of starters in a professional environment. Newcomers have to establish a reputation of being a helpful and contributing member of an organization. At the lower tenure level. It is more likely for an employee to have doubts and concerns about their abilities to perform their job assignments. This doubt might be especially present in the auditing profession where there are certain strict guidelines and standards in place to ensure uniformity of audit reports this can lead to a socialization process through on the job learning (Westermann et al. 2015). Professional ‘’apprenticeship’’ is the form in which learning on the job shows itself in the auditing profession. In a relation in which a young auditor profits from the guidance by the experienced elder (Westermann, 2015). This guidance is used until the apprentice learns enough and finds its way in the role of an auditor. In early stages, job satisfaction can likely be linked to appraisal of the performance for the starting employee (Norris, 1984). For a longer tenured employee this tends to change since feelings of
achievement, involvement and job security have further matured (Wanous, 1980).
Another theory that cannot be left unmentioned is the career stage theory. By this theory the upper levels of management are associated with increased power and prestige, which are generally not available to younger
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employees (Kacmar and Ferris, 1989). Besides job related improvements in job satisfaction for older employees, Hamilton (1978) argues that confidence and prestige coming from age alone can also contribute to job satisfaction. Given the evidence that mentors provide career support and guidance in the organization it can be argued that unexperienced auditors who want to obtain the necessary skills and who want to achieve promotion will benefit more from the guidance function of mentoring than others. The career stage model introduced by Super (1957) claims that employees in different stages have different goals, from identifying their interests and capabilities towards growing professionally and ending with finding challenging work assignments and taking responsibility for guiding others. As these goals from employees shift with tenure it is assumable that tenure could influence other relations resulting from these goals as well.Another interesting theory related to tenure is the career plateauing theory. This theory consists of the concept that at a certain point in a career exists where progression stops for employees. In auditing there is a known up or out structure in the career path (Morris and Empson, 1998) expecting auditors to take fast career steps in their first years as an auditor but when the manager level has been reached the opportunities to grow further are limited to becoming (equity)partner for instance. This suggests that the influence of guidance and career help tend to decline with rising tenure. Jiang et al. (2018) find that higher tenured employees have higher career adaptability based on the job experience model from Katz (1980), teaching that employees with longer tenure are better in utilizing psychological resources for positive changes in their career and therefor tend to need less guidance as such.
As mentoring provides the newcomers with guidance it is expected that tenure plays a significant role in making employees more satisfied with their job when they are satisfied with the guidance provided with their mentor. This effect is even more important for starting auditors who are still learning the skills required for auditing and are searching for the way up in the pyramid shaped audit organizations. This results in the second hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Tenure is expected to have a moderating effect on the linear relationship between mentoring and job satisfaction among auditors. Such that the positive effect of higher levels of mentoring is stronger for low tenured
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4. MethodThe method section will be structured as follows: First, the research setting will be elaborated in chapter 4.1. In 4.2 the measures used in this study are discussed followed by the control variables in chapter 4.3. Finally the analytical approach will be elaborated in chapter 4.4.
4.1 Research Setting
The data gathered for this study comes from surveys distributed among audit professionals in The Netherlands working at different organizations including the Big Four accountancy firms. At the time of this study the audit profession is receiving critical attention from the government, journalists and the NBA2 (Financieel Dagblad, 2018; NBA, 2018; Financieel Dagblad, 2018). Most auditors in the Netherlands are either chartered accountant or enrolled in programs to become a chartered accountant registered at the Dutch NBA. Although the Netherlands has over 21.000 registered accountants and hundreds of aspiring chartered accountants working in the audit profession and enrolled in universities to gain the required accreditation, it is difficult to gain access to these auditors without help from the NBA and potentially more difficult due to the negative attention. We’ve tried to increase the likelihood of responses on our survey by asking personally known audit professionals from our network. Besides the personal commitment we’ve also sent two further personal reminders to non-respondents. In total an amount of 178 professionals were asked to fill out an online survey, 142 responses were obtained, resulting in a response rate of 79,8%.
In order to ensure the correctness of the survey the questions were translated into Dutch and back-translated into English to check the accuracy of the translation (Brislin, 1980). Participants did not receive any compensation for completing the survey. Every participant was granted the possibility to receive a personalized benchmark report in which their individual scores were compared against the average score of the other auditors whom completed the survey. The final sample consisted of 139 mentored auditors of which 65,6% was male with an average age of 30.89.
4.2 Measures
Mentoring was measured using the measure developed by Heslin et al. (2006) that identified and validated the guidance role of mentors after extensive literature review as the communication of clear performance expectations and constructive feedback regarding performance outcomes, as well as how to improve. In this study, the reliability of the composite measure was ensured by Cronbach’s alpha (α = .86). Sample items included: ‘‘… Provides guidance regarding performance expectations’’;‘‘… Helps me to analyze my performance’’;‘‘… Provides constructive feedback regarding areas for improvement’’;‘‘… offers useful suggestions regarding how you can improve your performance’’. Respondents were asked to fill in these items in reference to their mentor. Protégés ranked each item on a 7-point Likert-type scale with the anchors: 1 = ‘‘Not at all’’ to 7 = ‘‘To a very great extent’’. Some respondents indicated that they had no mentor. Given the lack of a mentor for these respondents these
2 The ‘Koninklijke Nederlandse Beroepsorganisatie van Accountants’ (NBA) is the professional body for accountants in the Netherlands
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respondents received the minimum mentoring score of 1; representing no mentoring at all. To rule out any potential bias caused by unobserved differences between auditors that do or do not have a mentor, a dummy variable was constructed with the score of 1 for auditors that have a mentor and 0 for auditors with no mentor.Auditing experience was measured by taking the tenure in years as an auditor, this does not necessarily imply that all years are at the same organization. Tenure in years was winsorized at 30 years for tenure and log transformed to reduce skewness and provide a more normally distributed variable (Appendix 1).
Job satisfaction was measured using a three item measure based on the job characteristics model of Hackman and Oldham (1976). Using a seven point Likert-type scale with anchors from 1 = ‘‘Disagree’’ to 7 = ‘‘Agree strongly’’. Sample items included: ‘‘Generally speaking, I am very satisfied with my job’’; ‘‘I am generally satisfied with the feeling of worthwhile accomplishment I get from doing this job’’; ‘‘I am generally satisfied with the kind of work I do in this job’’. The reliability of the composite measure was ensured by Cronbach’s alpha (α = .86).
4.3 Control variables
In this study the relations will be controlled for age of the auditor, as this might have an effect similar to tenure, studies find that older audit professionals are generally more satisfied with their job in line with the career-stage theory (Moyes, 2006; Ferris, 1969; Gordon and Johnson, 1982). Studies diving in to the effect of both age and gender on job satisfaction remain scarce. In a study, surveying over 5000 men and women, Clark, Oswald and Warr (1966) find that the age effect on job satisfaction differs between men and women. Moyes (2006) concludes about gender and age that the differences in job fulfillment where significant for both age and gender, resulting in higher levels of job fulfilment for older accounting professionals. A third factor to control for in this study is the size of the firm. In previous research the role of mentoring varies between small and large firms (Herbohn, 2004; Kaplan, 2001) for this reason this study expects a possible effect and control for this with the use of a Big Four dummy with a value of 1 for auditors working at a Big Four accounting firm and 0 for auditors working outside a Big Four firm. 4.4 Analytical approach
In this section the analytical way of testing the proposed hypotheses is explained. In the first hypothesis the influence of mentoring on job satisfaction is tested using a linear regression model. The model used for testing the first hypothesis is:
(1) 𝐽𝑆 = 𝑀𝐸𝑁 + 𝐴𝐺𝐸 + 𝐺𝐸𝑁 + 𝐽𝐴 + 𝐵𝑖𝑔𝑓_𝐷 + 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡_𝐷 + 𝑒
Where the dependent is the job satisfaction JS and the independent variable is mentoring score (MEN). The control variables of the model include age (AGE), auditor gender (GEN), job autonomy (JA) and dummy’s for having a mentor (Ment_D) and being in a Big Four audit firm (Bigf_D). Where indices i stands for auditor i and e is the error term.
The second hypothesis involves audit tenure (Ten) as a negative moderator of the linear relationship between mentoring and job satisfaction. For the interaction effect of tenure the following equation is used:
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The interaction effect of tenure is captured by the interaction term 𝑀𝐸𝑁 ∗ 𝐿𝑜𝑔𝑇𝑒𝑛 . The same controls are used as in equation 1.9
5. Results5.1 Descriptive statistics
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation and the Pearson correlation for the variables studied. The table shows that job satisfaction among auditors is high based on the mean and standard deviation (5.14 on a 7 point scale), this is a noteworthy finding as it goes against the mentioned tendency that most auditors are unhappy in their jobs. As for the correlations, this table shows that job satisfaction and intentions to leave significantly and negatively correlate in line with the literature (Scandura, 1994; Moyes, 2006; Ferris, 1969; Gordon and Johnson, 1982; Porter and Steers 1973; Siegel, 2001). Mentoring score does significantly correlate with intentions to leave but does not significantly correlate with job satisfaction. It does however interacts significantly with the mentor dummy, logical as non-mentored auditors have a mentor score of 1. Tenure and age correlate in a significant way.
The significant correlation between the Big Four dummy and the mentor dummy indicates that Big Four auditors more often have mentors. This is important to note with regards to the negative significant relation between mentor score and the Big Four dummy. Job satisfaction shows a strong negative relation with intentions to leave. Age and tenure are both significantly correlated to job satisfaction (positive) and intentions to leave (negative), in line with the before mentioned literature (Moyes, 2006; Ferris, 1969; Gordon and Johnson, 1982). Furthermore the Big Four dummy (with 1 = Big Four and 0 = no Big Four) is negatively and significantly correlated to job satisfaction, tenure and age, this dummy is positively and significantly correlated to intentions to leave. The control variable job autonomy does positively and significantly correlate to job satisfaction, tenure and age. It does negatively correlate to mentor score, the female-, Big Four- and mentor dummy. Finally the gender dummy tells us the older/higher tenure respondents are generally more often male. Based on the outcomes of the correlation testing as shown in table 1 does not show a significant correlation between mentoring and job satisfaction based on the data set.
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Note: N = 139 *P < .05 **p < .01 **P < .01 * P < .05 Table 1:Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Intentions to leave 3.33 1.51 2. Job satisfaction 5.14 1.01 -.662** 3. Mentor score 4.82 1.50 -.204* .111 4. Tenure (log) 1.26 1.21 -.286** .158* -.216** 5. Age 30.89 8.16 -.234** .289** -.201** .784** 6. Female dummy 0.32 0.47 .046 .086 .100 -.147* -.208** 7. Big Four dummy .89 .31 .281** -.199** .434** -.368** -.438** .039 8. Mentor dummy .91 .29 .234** -.128 .813** -.415** -.548** .113 .447** 9. Job autonomy 4.56 1.15 -.102 .197** -.290** .498** .358** -.147* -.283** -.240** 10. Hours per week 46.89 5.62 .029 .140 -.198** .279** .268** -.130 -.003 -.116 .283** Table 2:
Results of Regression for Job Satisfaction
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Age .268* .291** .494** .417**
Female Dummy .162 .162 .173* .186*
Big Four Dummy -.092 -.113 -.113 -.100
Mentor Dummy .075 -.161 -.134 .002 Job Autonomy .091 .111 .181 .184 Hours Worked .077 .099 .106 .111 Mentor Score .323* .301* .293* Tenure (log) -.285* -.197 Tenure (log) x mentor score -.177 Constant 5.063** 5.861** 5.760** 5.218** R2 .130 .162 .189 .196 ΔR2 .130** .032* .026* .008 N 139 139 139 139
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5.2 Hypotheses testingTable 2 shows the results of the regression analysis performed to test the hypotheses. Four models are included to isolate the contributions of the different terms to the regression. The control variables are included in model 1. Model 2 adds the linear term of mentoring score as proposed in the first hypothesis. To investigate the effect of tenure it is added in model 3. The interaction term between mentoring and tenure is added in model 4 to test for the interaction effect.
In the second model support is found for the linear relation between mentoring score and job satisfaction at the P < .05 level as mentioned in the first hypothesis. Model 3 shows a significant negative coefficient for tenure (Model 3, b = -.285 P < .05). The models show no significant interaction effect between tenure and mentoring, for this reason it would not make sense to plot the interaction effect as this is not interpretable (Aiken and West, 1991).
5.3 Robustness checks
Besides the analysis of measuring the effect with tenure as a continuous variable, several tests have been performed with categorizations as substitutes for a continuous variable for tenure. First the tests have been performed for the organization functions. Categorizing the functions and testing if employees in the lower regions of the organization had more benefit from the guiding role of mentoring resulted in insignificant relations. Besides the role in the organization, tenure can be categorized based on the others in the dataset. Tests have been executed to test for the tenure categories (High, Medium and Low tenure). In appendix 2 the partial regressions for the three levels of tenure (High, Medium, Low) have been presented. These plots indicate a steeper relation between mentoring and job satisfaction at the lowest tenure category. Yet these indications are insignificant when tested.
Besides analysis with different measures for tenure, analysis has been performed to control for informal/formal mentor relationships. No significant effect has been found in this analysis.
5.4 Additional testing
Additional tests have been performed to test the relation between mentoring and intentions to leave. The literature has proven that job satisfaction and intention to leave are intertwined (Scandura, 1994; Moyes, 2006; Ferris, 1969; Gordon and Johnson, 1982; Porter and Steers 1973; Siegel, 2001). The negative correlation found in Table 1 between job satisfaction and intentions to leave are in line with this literature. Previous analysis couldn’t significantly prove an interaction effect of tenure on the relationship between mentoring and job satisfaction. In Table 3 the results are shown for the analysis with intentions to leave as the dependent variable.
As shown in the table, mentoring has a negative and highly significant influence on intentions to leave. The results presented in model 3 do not provide convincing evidence of a significant influence of tenure on the intention to leave. Model 4 shows that the interaction term is not significant as well. Analyzing for different levels of tenure do not show any significant results indicating a tenure or an interaction effect.
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Table 3. Results of Regression for Intentions to LeaveModel 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Age -.188 -.147 -.337* -.206
Female Dummy .009 .009 -.001 -.023
Big Four Dummy .187 .215 .214* .192*
Mentor Dummy .093 .394 .369* .137 Job Autonomy -.003 -.022 -.087 -.092 Hours Worked .072 .043 .038 .029 Mentor Score -.413** -.392** -.378** Tenure (log) .267 .117 Tenure (log) x mentor score .301 Constant R2 .104 .156 .179 .201 ΔR2 .104** .052** .023 .022 N 139 139 139 139 **P < .01 * P < .05
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6. DiscussionThis study started with the observation that the auditing profession has difficulties in attracting and retaining young auditors. This is potentially threatening to the quality of the audits executed by audit firms. To reverse this trend the firms are looking for programs to satisfy their employees in order to retain them and their valuable experience on the job. There is an ongoing debate about factors that help to satisfy an retain auditors. Mentoring audit professionals throughout their career by more senior auditors is one way to do so. From psychologic research the positive benefits from mentoring are known (Allen et al., 2004; Heslin, 2006) and many audit firms already offer programs to promote mentor relations. This study was designed to gather evidence on the relationship between job satisfaction and mentoring for auditors, with special attention for the tenure of the auditor. This study approached 178 audit professionals in the Netherlands, finding 139 willing to fill in a survey about their work and behavior.
The first hypothesis tested the proposition that mentoring has a positive linear relation with job satisfaction that would be in line with the previous research. Mentoring research explains the benefits of mentoring for auditor wellbeing (Kram, 1985; Dirsmith and Covaleski, 1985; Scandura and Viator, 1994). Whilst testing this hypothesis the correlation between mentoring and job satisfaction proved non-significant. In the regression models mentoring was found to be of significant influence on job satisfaction. Based on the existing theory the causality between mentoring and job satisfaction can be argued. When looking at the results of this study the regression performed indicates that mentoring significantly influences the job satisfaction as well.
The second hypothesis tests if auditors profit differently from mentoring in different stages of their career. The results of this testing suggest that there is no significant evidence for the claim that auditors profit more or less from mentoring based on their tenure. Although it was argued from career stage theory that this relation would exist. Based on earlier research on the stages of a career lower tenured employees were expected to benefit most from the positive results of mentoring (Hall, 1988; Schein, 1971). The results of the analysis show significant positive effects for age on job satisfaction that are in line with the theories about older employees reporting higher levels of job satisfaction, reestablishing this link between age and job satisfaction is in line with previous research (Moyes, 2006; Ferris, 1969; Gordon and Johnson, 1982). Researchers should be aware that there is a bias in measuring job
satisfaction in favor of older employees when comparing research between different layers in the organization. Based on the career stage theory different results were expected when controlling for different levels of tenure. Testing for this connection did not result in significant outcomes. The results of this study challenge the assumption that insecurities that are found in the early stages of a career can be limited by the guiding role of mentoring. Robustness tests with use of dummies for different career stages (High, Mid and Low tenure) did not result in significant effects of tenure on job satisfaction among auditors. These results implicate that tenure might not be the factor to study at when considering mentoring as a tool for retaining auditors.
Besides finding ways to satisfy auditors a secondary underlying goal of this study was to indicate if mentoring has an effect on the intentions to leave for auditors. In line with this secondary purpose of this study it is argued that there are significant studies that provide the evidence for a causal relation between job satisfaction and intentions to leave (Porter and Steers 1973; Siegel, 2001). From additional testing for intention to leave this result supported the
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notion that mentoring has a negative significant effect on auditor’s intention to leave. The negative relation found between job satisfaction and intentions to leave are in line with literature. This additional analysis added to the theoretical literature that focusses on integrating the literature about mentoring functions in a work setting to literature about employee turnover. Finding significant effects that support negative linear relation between the mentor score and the intentions to leave for auditors. This is in line with the earlier research in the field of mentoring at work. (Allen, 2004; Chao, 1992; Dirsmith, 1985; Baugh, 1996). However for this additional testing the role of tenure as a moderator of the relation between mentoring and intentions to leave could not be established. 6.2 Limitations and further researchAlthough the response rate of 80% is high for survey research there is still a possibility for non-response bias. Another limitation is the distribution of the auditors tenure, relevant for testing the second hypothesis in this study. Tenure shows a low mean and a large proportion of the respondents are in their early career stage. This has a twofold explanation. The employee functions in auditor companies have a pyramid shape resulting in a high amount of starters relative to the amount of senior auditors (Grey, 1998). Another source of this bias is found in the way of selecting respondents. Interns, who have more contact with young auditors at the office, requesting auditors to fill in the survey might also exclude senior auditors from even receiving the survey. Using winsorizing and natural log to transform the data into more normally distributed data was beneficial for testing but lowers the weight of the few outliers.
Another critical note regarding this study is found in the method, using the measure of Heslin et al (2006) resulted in a particular way of measuring mentoring. Specifically the guiding role of a mentor is measured using this construct. This makes it difficult to compare the results of this study with others that use different constructs that focus more on the psychosocial function of mentoring like Kram (1988). The same goes for job satisfaction. The measure used from Hackman and Oldham (1976) has been verified but could give different results from other measures. Besides this the quality of mentoring depends on multiple factors like the knowledge of the mentor, organizational politics and culture, mentor’s skills as a trainer and developer, mentor motivation and ability to provide guidance
(Ramaswami and Dreher, 2007). By using survey questions these factors are potentially missed because they measure the perception about mentor quality of the auditor filling in the survey not the actual quality of the mentor. According to Ragins and Kram (2008) measuring the actual mentor quality should lead to mentoring-career outcome effect sizes much larger than from perceptions. Because of the unique nature of relationships it is difficult to
externally validate the effects that mentor relations have. One could not have a different mentor or a different protégé and have the same relationship. The two persons forming the mentoring couple are not replaceable for the same outcome (Kalbfleisch, 2008). As shown in the descriptive statistics for the calculated measures the distribution of intention to leave is slightly different, with the mean more towards the middle of the scale than the distribution of job satisfaction. Due to the nature of the auditing profession where the turnover is high the turnover intentions might face a lower taboo among auditors, tempering social desirability bias (Hiltebeitel and Leauby, 2001). This might explain why there are significant outcomes regarding mentoring and turnover and not with job satisfaction.
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Based on the information obtained from testing it cannot be ruled out that other factors have more influence on job satisfaction than the variables tested in the model have. The R2 of .162 for the model including mentoring and the control variables leaves a lot of room for other variables not included in the model to have an influence on job satisfaction. The use of this causality must be found in the theoretical base provided in this study. It’s up to further research to determine the variables that influence job satisfaction to an even higher amount.Future research in the field of mentoring at work should be focused on coming with a objective measurer of mentor quality besides self-assessment in surveys. Besides the measure for mentoring quality it would be interesting to see if effects change over time, using multiple observations for the person.
6.3
ConclusionIn line with the literature the results of this study show a significant relation between mentoring score and job satisfaction. This effect was not moderated by the tenure of auditors in contrary of what was expected in the second hypothesis. In the additional testing the relation between mentoring and intentions to leave have been found negative and significant however the moderating role of tenure cannot be confirmed by the tests. The contribution of this study for practice is good news for audit firms who are looking for ways to retain auditors in their firm. The effects of mentoring on job satisfaction and the intention to leave can be a reason to start or continue mentoring programs. Possible advice about career stages demanding more or less mentoring cannot be given based on the current research data. The contributions of this study for job satisfaction research and the auditing practice consist of several factors. The primary practical contribution is that no evidence can be found that links tenure to have a moderating influence on the relation between job satisfaction and mentoring. This implies that fitting your mentor program towards tenure does not solve the problem faced by audit firms that auditors are unhappy with their job. Possibilities for future research on mentoring in the audit profession should be focused on distinguishing other characteristics that influence the success of mentoring among audit professionals besides the tenure of auditors and unifying the measures used for mentoring.
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AppendicesAppendix 1: Distribution of tenure variable (Z-score) before and after natural log transformation of winsorized variable.
