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This research examines the effect of auditors’ personal debt on their audit decision making. We developed two different background scenarios that vary the level of the auditor’s personal debt. While one scenario indicated that the partner lived a modest lifestyle and was relatively free of debt, the other indicated that the partner lived an expensive lifestyle and had considerable personal debt. Our data indicate that auditors receiving the higher personal indebtedness scenario were more likely to believe that the auditor in the case study would sign-off on the audit without doing any additional work. We also found that the propensity to believe that the auditor in the case study would sign-off on the audit without doing any additional work decreased as the participants’ rank within the firm increased. Our research documents that a partner’s level of indebtedness could influence the participant’s audit decisions.

Over the last decade, many published papers lament auditors’ shift from professionalism to commercialism and call for increasing auditors’ commitment to the public interest (see, e.g., Bailey, 2008; Fogarty & Rigsby, 2010; Lampe & Garcia, 2013; Wyatt, 2004; Zeff, 2003a, 2003b). At the same time, suggesting effective methodologies for improving auditors’ commitment to the public interest is particularly challenging because issues arising in the audit context are complex, and often involve tradeoffs between multiple stakeholders (e.g., Gaa, 1992; Massey & Thorne, 2006). An understanding of auditors ethical characterizations across separate phases of the audit process is needed so that methodologies can be devised to improve auditors’ commitment to the public interest. Thus, in this paper we interviewed 24 auditors and asked them to describe critical ethical incidents that they have encountered throughout the various phases of the audit process. Our results not only document the tension underlying the shift between professionalism and commercialism in auditing suggested by others, but also show that ethical conflicts are found in each phase of the audit and there are cross-phase differences in the auditors’ ethical characterizations. Limitations of the findings are also discussed as are suggestions for future research.

This chapter traces the evolution of personality trait research in the behavioral accounting literature and offers suggestions for past and future trends. These personality traits include, among others, those measured by the Myers-Briggs Type and Five Factor models (FFMs), Type A/B, tolerance for ambiguity, locus of control, authoritarianism, and the Dark Triad components of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. In a broad spectrum analysis of accounting journals without regard to timing or geographics, we attempt to capture the major phases of personality trait research and provide suggestions as to the surrounding environment for such progressions in the literature. In addition to more established research streams, this chapter also discusses other personality traits that have only been marginally investigated in the accounting literature, and possible directions for future research.

This study examines the influence of firm management’s ethical “tone at the top” (tone) and the working relationship of an auditor with his/her supervisor (senior) on the auditor’s propensity to engage in an unethical, dysfunctional auditor behavior (DAB). Findings indicate that environmental factors influence the staff auditor’s decision of whether or not to follow a course of action suggested by the supervisor that is contrary to both the audit program and generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS). Specifically, auditors are influenced by the tone that the partner sets for the firm and by the working relationship that the staff auditor has with the supervising senior auditor. The results of this research have ramifications for the auditing profession, as they identify specific factors outside of auditing standards and beyond an auditor’s moral reasoning capabilities that can influence the acceptance of unethical, dysfunctional behavior.

Creativity and innovation are important for fulfilling organizational goals. In understanding ways to enhance creativity research has moved on from understanding individual creativity, to an organizational analysis of successful firms that encourage creativity. However, an additional source of creativity stems from direct and indirect leadership and the decisions leaders make to enhance creativity throughout the organization. This chapter examines creativity in film and television as influenced by leadership activities at the organization, team, and individual level and describes lessons learned.

Psychological contracts represent unofficial or informal expectations that an individual holds, most commonly applied to an employer–employee relationship. Understanding psychological contracts helps explain the consequences of unmet expectations, including increased budgetary slack and reduced audit quality. This chapter reviews and synthesizes accounting behavioral research that discusses psychological contracts and that was published in academic and practitioner journals in the areas of financial accounting, management accounting, auditing, taxes, non-profit organizations, accounting education, and the accounting profession itself. Despite the prevalence of psychological contracts in the workplace and the applicability to behavioral research, accounting literature remains limited regarding applications of psychological contracts. This chapter aggregates research across all areas of accounting to provide suggestions for use of psychological contracts in future research and thus create a connected research stream.

The time period from the mid-1980s through 2002 is described in this series of research as a “pre-SOX” era of rapid deprofessionalization in U.S. pubic accountancy resulting in the loss of professional status. This was a period, however, when all professions were suffering some deprofessionalization. During the pre-SOX period it appears that leadership in public accountancy responded to a nearly perfect storm of changes confronting the profession with a corporate mentality of management by objectives, commercialization, and profit maximization resulting in constant and substantial net deprofessionalization greater than that of other professions. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing through 2001, some critics of public accountancy have asserted that leaders in the profession either lost or forgot what was required for public accountancy to be recognized as a profession. The conclusion stated in this paper is that public accountancy has lost its professional status in or before 2002. The reasons and events leading to this conclusion are presented and discussed. In the United States it appears as though once professional status is lost, regaining the elite status is more difficult. The question is if public accountancy can learn from history going into the substantial changes to be confronted in the post-SOX era of public accountancy and regain or at least make progress toward regaining professional status.