Working apart: Remote working and social bonding in the Big Four audit firms

IF 8.3 2区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE Critical Perspectives on Accounting Pub Date : 2024-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102727

Pauline Beau, Lambert Jerman

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the influence of remote working on social bonding in Big Four audit firms. Through analysis of 42 interviews, we show that remote working places less demand on auditors to get involved in their firms’ collectives, in addition to individualizing their experience of work and reducing spontaneous mutual support mechanisms. While remote working is sometimes perceived as a way to achieve a better work-life balance in these firms, our results suggest that the potential gain in wellbeing may be achieved to the detriment of social bonding between auditors. Our results contribute to auditing research in two ways. They reveal the collective dimension of auditors’ identity construction by confirming that the place of work is not just a setting, but one of the chief mechanisms of social bonding at work. Additionally, they highlight remote working’s ambivalent impact on the attractiveness of Big Four audit firms.

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分开工作：四大审计公司中的远程工作和社会联系

在这篇文章中，我们研究了四大审计公司中远程工作对社会联系的影响。通过对 42 个访谈的分析，我们发现远程工作降低了审计师参与事务所集体活动的要求，此外还使他们的工作体验个性化，减少了自发的相互支持机制。虽然远程工作有时被认为是这些公司实现更好的工作与生活平衡的一种方式，但我们的研究结果表明，在实现潜在的福利收益的同时，可能会损害审计师之间的社会联系。我们的研究结果在两个方面为审计研究做出了贡献。它们揭示了审计师身份构建的集体维度，证实了工作地点不仅仅是一个环境，还是工作中社会联系的主要机制之一。此外，它们还强调了远程工作对四大审计公司吸引力的矛盾影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Critical Perspectives on Accounting BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

9.40

自引率

7.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such concerns, a new literature is emerging that seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we apprehend and affect that activity. Research Areas Include: • Studies involving the political economy of accounting, critical accounting, radical accounting, and accounting''s implication in the exercise of power • Financial accounting''s role in the processes of international capital formation, including its impact on stock market stability and international banking activities • Management accounting''s role in organizing the labor process • The relationship between accounting and the state in various social formations • Studies of accounting''s historical role, as a means of "remembering" the subject''s social and conflictual character • The role of accounting in establishing "real" democracy at work and other domains of life • Accounting''s adjudicative function in international exchanges, such as that of the Third World debt • Antagonisms between the social and private character of accounting, such as conflicts of interest in the audit process • The identification of new constituencies for radical and critical accounting information • Accounting''s involvement in gender and class conflicts in the workplace • The interplay between accounting, social conflict, industrialization, bureaucracy, and technocracy • Reappraisals of the role of accounting as a science and technology • Critical reviews of "useful" scientific knowledge about organizations