Pub Date : 2025-06-24DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101607
Nelson Duenas
This paper is concerned with the understanding of resistance in accounting research. Using the case of a Southern Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and its relationships with donors within the international development assemblage, I discuss how the organization, in experiencing mixed feelings towards its donors' managerial discourses and accounting practices, engages in a process of resistance. Such resistance operates amidst a processual interplay of attraction and repulsion towards the colonial opposite. Using Homi Bhabha's Postcolonial Theory (PCT) and its emphasis on the affective dimension in colonial encounters, I find that the NGO's actions are nestled within hybridity and ambivalence, which drive the NGO towards balancing opposing forces to move forward in the assemblage. I contribute to accounting literature by offering an affective understanding of the ambivalence produced by postcolonial relations mediated by accounting, and by reconceptualizing resistance in accounting research as a flux of affects with political implications in shifting relationships.
{"title":"Accounting and post-colonial Resistance: Affective ambivalence in the international development assemblage","authors":"Nelson Duenas","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101607","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101607","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper is concerned with the understanding of resistance in accounting research. Using the case of a Southern Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and its relationships with donors within the international development assemblage, I discuss how the organization, in experiencing mixed feelings towards its donors' managerial discourses and accounting practices, engages in a process of resistance. Such resistance operates amidst a processual interplay of attraction and repulsion towards the colonial opposite. Using Homi Bhabha's Postcolonial Theory (PCT) and its emphasis on the affective dimension in colonial encounters, I find that the NGO's actions are nestled within hybridity and ambivalence, which drive the NGO towards balancing opposing forces to move forward in the assemblage. I contribute to accounting literature by offering an affective understanding of the ambivalence produced by postcolonial relations mediated by accounting, and by reconceptualizing resistance in accounting research as a flux of affects with political implications in shifting relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"115 ","pages":"Article 101607"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144470494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-18DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101599
Clark Hampton , Macy Knutson , Adi Masli , Chad Stefaniak
Consumers are increasingly conscientious of societal and environmental impacts of their purchases, prompting companies to make environmental, social, and governance (ESG) claims and engage in voluntary ESG assurance. However, prior literature lacks insight into whether consumers consider negative accounting news events (e.g., error/irregularity restatements) and their effects on purchasing intentions. Using real world consumers of sustainable goods, we investigate how varying levels of negative accounting news events (i.e., error or irregularity restatements), the presence of ESG product-quality assurance (e.g., cage free egg certification), and the type of assurance provider (e.g., an accounting firm that also audits the financial statements, an accounting firm that does not audit the financial statements, government agency) influence purchasing intentions and organizational legitimacy perceptions. We find that consumers surrogate negative accounting news events as indicators of ESG claim reliability, negatively impacting purchasing intentions, especially for more severe events (e.g., irregularity). However, ESG product-quality assurance partially mitigates these negative effects. Moreover, we find that when an error restatement occurs, the mitigating effect is less pronounced when the same firm provides both financial statement and ESG product-quality assurance compared to a governmental agency or non-financial statement auditor. Finally, when irregularities occur, though product-quality assurance partially mitigates the detrimental effects, there is no difference between assurance providers, likely because management's willingness to deceive auditors decreases the perceived reliability of assurance in general. Our results suggest boards should obtain ESG product-quality assurance and carefully select their assurance providers.
{"title":"How negative accounting news events, voluntary ESG assurance, and assurance provider influence consumer purchasing intentions","authors":"Clark Hampton , Macy Knutson , Adi Masli , Chad Stefaniak","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101599","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101599","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Consumers are increasingly conscientious of societal and environmental impacts of their purchases, prompting companies to make environmental, social, and governance (ESG) claims and engage in voluntary ESG assurance. However, prior literature lacks insight into whether consumers consider negative accounting news events (e.g., error/irregularity restatements) and their effects on purchasing intentions. Using real world consumers of sustainable goods, we investigate how varying levels of negative accounting news events (i.e., error or irregularity restatements), the presence of ESG product-quality assurance (e.g., cage free egg certification), and the type of assurance provider (e.g., an accounting firm that also audits the financial statements, an accounting firm that does not audit the financial statements, government agency) influence purchasing intentions and organizational legitimacy perceptions. We find that consumers surrogate negative accounting news events as indicators of ESG claim reliability, negatively impacting purchasing intentions, especially for more severe events (e.g., irregularity). However, ESG product-quality assurance partially mitigates these negative effects. Moreover, we find that when an error restatement occurs, the mitigating effect is less pronounced when the same firm provides both financial statement <em>and</em> ESG product-quality assurance compared to a governmental agency or non-financial statement auditor. Finally, when irregularities occur, though product-quality assurance partially mitigates the detrimental effects, there is no difference between assurance providers, likely because management's willingness to deceive auditors decreases the perceived reliability of assurance in general. Our results suggest boards should obtain ESG product-quality assurance and carefully select their assurance providers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"115 ","pages":"Article 101599"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144306473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-26DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101594
June Huang , Shirley Lu
We study whether voluntary gender diversity disclosure is predictive of gender diversity performance. Exploiting a mandate in the United Kingdom that requires firms to disclose 2017 gender pay gap (“GPG”) data for the first time, we find that providing voluntary gender diversity disclosure in 2016 is correlated with having a worse gender pay gap in 2017. Our results are concentrated in industries with worse gender diversity reputations, consistent with legitimacy theory, where firms facing more public pressure use voluntary disclosure to help legitimize their reputations. We further examine whether this disclosure reflects a firm's intent to improve its gender diversity performance over time. We find that forward-looking disclosures, such as gender diversity targets, are positively associated with GPG improvement from 2017 to 2019. Collectively, these gender pay gap findings shed light on how voluntary ESG disclosure can be used to predict current and future ESG performance.
{"title":"Gender diversity performance and voluntary disclosure: Mind the (gender pay) gap","authors":"June Huang , Shirley Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101594","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101594","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study whether voluntary gender diversity disclosure is predictive of gender diversity performance. Exploiting a mandate in the United Kingdom that requires firms to disclose 2017 gender pay gap (“GPG”) data for the first time, we find that providing voluntary gender diversity disclosure in 2016 is correlated with having a worse gender pay gap in 2017. Our results are concentrated in industries with worse gender diversity reputations, consistent with legitimacy theory, where firms facing more public pressure use voluntary disclosure to help legitimize their reputations. We further examine whether this disclosure reflects a firm's intent to improve its gender diversity performance over time. We find that forward-looking disclosures, such as gender diversity targets, are positively associated with GPG improvement from 2017 to 2019. Collectively, these gender pay gap findings shed light on how voluntary ESG disclosure can be used to predict current and future ESG performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101594"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144138732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-21DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101597
Ioana Lupu, Shanming Liu
Extreme work hours in professional service firms (PSFs) are often attributed to organizational control mechanisms such as time sheets, utilization targets, and performance evaluations. This paper introduces the concept of the entrainment cycle to explore how these controls foster professionals' compliance with extreme work patterns. The entrainment cycle explains how individuals become continuously synchronized with the collective rhythm of the organization. Drawing on 159 interviews with 81 professionals across two PSFs, the study explores how formal and normative controls synchronize individuals with the fast-paced organizational tempo. The findings reveal how bureaucratic and cultural entrainment mechanisms contribute to synchronization. Moreover, emotions and bodily responses play a critical role in making professionals internalize the organization's rhythms. Periods of synchronization trigger positive feedback loops in which heightened emotions and bodily responses reinforce individuals' attachment to work. These synchronized periods contrast with moments of desynchronization in which professionals experience negative feedback loops characterized by guilt, anxiety, and physical withdrawal symptoms. The bodily and emotional mechanisms this study reveals reinforce professionals' synchronization with collective rhythms, locking them into an entrainment cycle that perpetuates long hours and ever-intensifying work. This study offers new insights into how controls affect individuals and organizations in significant, far-reaching, and often unobtrusive ways.
{"title":"The entrainment cycle: Understanding professionals’ compliance with extreme work hours in professional service firms","authors":"Ioana Lupu, Shanming Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101597","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101597","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extreme work hours in professional service firms (PSFs) are often attributed to organizational control mechanisms such as time sheets, utilization targets, and performance evaluations. This paper introduces the concept of the entrainment cycle to explore how these controls foster professionals' compliance with extreme work patterns. The entrainment cycle explains how individuals become continuously synchronized with the collective rhythm of the organization. Drawing on 159 interviews with 81 professionals across two PSFs, the study explores how formal and normative controls synchronize individuals with the fast-paced organizational tempo. The findings reveal how bureaucratic and cultural entrainment mechanisms contribute to synchronization. Moreover, emotions and bodily responses play a critical role in making professionals internalize the organization's rhythms. Periods of synchronization trigger positive feedback loops in which heightened emotions and bodily responses reinforce individuals' attachment to work. These synchronized periods contrast with moments of desynchronization in which professionals experience negative feedback loops characterized by guilt, anxiety, and physical withdrawal symptoms. The bodily and emotional mechanisms this study reveals reinforce professionals' synchronization with collective rhythms, locking them into an entrainment cycle that perpetuates long hours and ever-intensifying work. This study offers new insights into how controls affect individuals and organizations in significant, far-reaching, and often unobtrusive ways.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101597"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144107768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-21DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101598
Michelle van Weeren , Clarence Bluntz
In the last three decades, a new field has emerged around the production and consumption of ratings seeking to reflect corporate performance concerning environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters. By studying the production and transformation of a rating in this field, we contribute to recent discussions about “cultural fields of accounting”, where calculative innovations are developed by entities operating beyond formal rules or regulations. We analyze how an ESG rating agency tried to set a standard for a “holistic” ESG rating, while interactions between the agency and diverse field actors led to the shifting and hybridizing of logics underlying its rating practices. Building on the literature on production and consumption thinking in epistemic practice, we analyze how the agency transformed its rating from an “accurate” representation of sustainability performance to a useable reference for market actors. This shift provoked an acceleration of epistemic processes, a hollowing-out of analysts' judgment, and a progressive evaporation of their faith in the ratings' potential to disrupt existing investment practices. We discuss the implications of our findings for a better understanding of rating processes and their effects on the transformative potential of ESG ratings, which are ultimately shaped by investors’ preferences. Our case also hints at potential starting points for the diffusion of alternative logics in market-based accounting fields through a hybrid epistemic approach.
{"title":"What makes a rating useable? Shifting epistemic practices in the ESG rating field","authors":"Michelle van Weeren , Clarence Bluntz","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101598","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101598","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the last three decades, a new field has emerged around the production and consumption of ratings seeking to reflect corporate performance concerning environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters. By studying the production and transformation of a rating in this field, we contribute to recent discussions about “cultural fields of accounting”, where calculative innovations are developed by entities operating beyond formal rules or regulations. We analyze how an ESG rating agency tried to set a standard for a “holistic” ESG rating, while interactions between the agency and diverse field actors led to the shifting and hybridizing of logics underlying its rating practices. Building on the literature on production and consumption thinking in epistemic practice, we analyze how the agency transformed its rating from an “<em>accurate”</em> representation of sustainability performance to a <em>useable</em> reference for market actors. This shift provoked an acceleration of epistemic processes, a hollowing-out of analysts' judgment, and a progressive evaporation of their faith in the ratings' potential to disrupt existing investment practices. We discuss the implications of our findings for a better understanding of rating processes and their effects on the transformative potential of ESG ratings, which are ultimately shaped by investors’ preferences. Our case also hints at potential starting points for the diffusion of alternative logics in market-based accounting fields through a hybrid epistemic approach.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101598"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144107770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-21DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101596
Shelley Xin Li , Shivaram Rajgopal , Suraj Srinivasan , Yu Ting Forester Wong
Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures. This study adapts a management control framework and empirically examines changes in board-level “process control” and “input control” mechanisms in 95 large U.S. bank holding companies (2000–2015) and contrasts these with 1,452 nonbanks. Our findings indicate that most post-2008 improvements occurred in “process controls,” e.g. Chief Risk Officer (CRO) appointments increased from 53 % pre-crisis to 91 % post-crisis, with significantly more banks establishing a dedicated risk committee and identifying the committee responsible for reputation management. We also find progress in “input control” related to domain knowledge with an increase of 16 % in new bank directors with prior risk management experience, and significant increase in directors with other relevant domain knowledge. We observed limited or no change in control mechanisms related to improving the board members’ ability to voice different perspectives or commit more time to their role. Our results show that improvements in certain types of controls seem to have taken precedence over others which have implications for explaining and implementing changes in corporate governance and control mechanisms.
{"title":"What board-level control mechanisms changed in banks following the 2008 financial crisis? A descriptive study","authors":"Shelley Xin Li , Shivaram Rajgopal , Suraj Srinivasan , Yu Ting Forester Wong","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101596","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101596","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures. This study adapts a management control framework and empirically examines changes in board-level “process control” and “input control” mechanisms in 95 large U.S. bank holding companies (2000–2015) and contrasts these with 1,452 nonbanks. Our findings indicate that most post-2008 improvements occurred in “process controls,” e.g. Chief Risk Officer (CRO) appointments increased from 53 % pre-crisis to 91 % post-crisis, with significantly more banks establishing a dedicated risk committee and identifying the committee responsible for reputation management. We also find progress in “input control” related to domain knowledge with an increase of 16 % in new bank directors with prior risk management experience, and significant increase in directors with other relevant domain knowledge. We observed limited or no change in control mechanisms related to improving the board members’ ability to voice different perspectives or commit more time to their role. Our results show that improvements in certain types of controls seem to have taken precedence over others which have implications for explaining and implementing changes in corporate governance and control mechanisms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101596"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144107769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-21DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101595
Gerhard Speckbacher , Martin Wiernsperger
Subjective performance assessments carried out by evaluators at the same hierarchical level as the person being evaluated—commonly known as peer evaluations—are increasingly common in team-based work settings. While diversity can be beneficial to team performance in many ways, it can lead to ingroup favoritism in peer evaluations. Specifically, team members tend to evaluate the performance of peers they perceive as part of their ingroup—based on visible characteristics such as gender, organizational affiliation, or other shared traits—more favorably than that of peers they classify as outgroup. In two experiments, we examine how the timing of peer evaluations—either before or after external validation of team performance (e.g., feedback from managers or customers)—affects ingroup favoritism. We predict and find that when peer evaluations are conducted after a team’s success has been externally validated, ingroup favoritism is mitigated. In contrast, external validation of team failure does not reduce this bias. Our findings underscore the importance of aligning the timing of peer evaluations with the availability of team-external performance signals and offer practical insights for designing fairer and less biased peer evaluation systems.
{"title":"Peer evaluations in diverse teams: How external validation of team performance influences ingroup favoritism","authors":"Gerhard Speckbacher , Martin Wiernsperger","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101595","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101595","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Subjective performance assessments carried out by evaluators at the same hierarchical level as the person being evaluated—commonly known as peer evaluations—are increasingly common in team-based work settings. While diversity can be beneficial to team performance in many ways, it can lead to ingroup favoritism in peer evaluations. Specifically, team members tend to evaluate the performance of peers they perceive as part of their ingroup—based on visible characteristics such as gender, organizational affiliation, or other shared traits—more favorably than that of peers they classify as outgroup. In two experiments, we examine how the timing of peer evaluations—either before or after external validation of team performance (e.g., feedback from managers or customers)—affects ingroup favoritism. We predict and find that when peer evaluations are conducted after a team’s success has been externally validated, ingroup favoritism is mitigated. In contrast, external validation of team failure does not reduce this bias. Our findings underscore the importance of aligning the timing of peer evaluations with the availability of team-external performance signals and offer practical insights for designing fairer and less biased peer evaluation systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101595"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144107771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101593
Michael A. Ricci, Dan Rimkus
Auditors frequently encounter uncooperative clients that make evidence collection more difficult, but prior research points to conflicting perspectives on auditor reactions to this behavior. To add clarity, we conduct four studies. In Study 1, we predict and find that staff auditors increase their skeptical judgments in response to uncooperative clients, but also decrease their skeptical actions, creating an inconsistency that contradicts the audit risk model. We also find that the inconsistency is driven by participant concerns that taking actions against uncooperative clients will induce anxiety. In Study 2, we replicate these results, but also find that the inconsistency is reduced when actions require less interpersonal contact with the uncooperative client. A third experiment (Study 3) and an accompanying survey (Study 4) indicate that client personnel, especially those with more experience, anticipate staff auditor responses to less cooperative behavior and exploit these responses when misreporting or attempting to avoid auditor scrutiny. Altogether, this paper develops theory about inconsistent auditor reactions to uncooperative clients, has methodological implications, and is relevant to practitioners concerned about inconsistency between auditor judgment and action.
{"title":"Inconsistent responses to uncooperative client manager behavior: When auditors’ judgments and actions diverge","authors":"Michael A. Ricci, Dan Rimkus","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101593","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101593","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Auditors frequently encounter uncooperative clients that make evidence collection more difficult, but prior research points to conflicting perspectives on auditor reactions to this behavior. To add clarity, we conduct four studies. In Study 1, we predict and find that staff auditors increase their skeptical judgments in response to uncooperative clients, but also decrease their skeptical actions, creating an inconsistency that contradicts the audit risk model. We also find that the inconsistency is driven by participant concerns that taking actions against uncooperative clients will induce anxiety. In Study 2, we replicate these results, but also find that the inconsistency is reduced when actions require less interpersonal contact with the uncooperative client. A third experiment (Study 3) and an accompanying survey (Study 4) indicate that client personnel, especially those with more experience, anticipate staff auditor responses to less cooperative behavior and exploit these responses when misreporting or attempting to avoid auditor scrutiny. Altogether, this paper develops theory about inconsistent auditor reactions to uncooperative clients, has methodological implications, and is relevant to practitioners concerned about inconsistency between auditor judgment and action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101593"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143895200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2025.101592
Nikki L. MacKenzie , Christopher P. Agoglia
The audit process requires frequent communication between auditors and client managers. Often, the most knowledgeable managers are involved in the work relating to an audit inquiry. As such, they may feel a sense of “ownership” over the related work. When threatened, psychological ownership can cause individuals to behave defensively, which may pose a challenge for auditors. Theory suggests that how auditors begin these inquiries (e.g., using small talk) may influence managers' behavior. Through two experiments, we find that managers with higher psychological ownership are more likely to respond defensively to an audit inquiry relating to a potential inventory obsolescence issue. Additionally, we find that the use of professional small talk magnifies managers’ defensive responses and some evidence that social small talk helps mitigate defensive responses. Further, small talk improves the perceived rapport between the manager and the auditor, compared to no small talk.
{"title":"The power of small talk: How small talk and psychological ownership influence managers’ communication defensiveness during audit inquiry","authors":"Nikki L. MacKenzie , Christopher P. Agoglia","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101592","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2025.101592","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The audit process requires frequent communication between auditors and client managers. Often, the most knowledgeable managers are involved in the work relating to an audit inquiry. As such, they may feel a sense of “ownership” over the related work. When threatened, psychological ownership can cause individuals to behave defensively, which may pose a challenge for auditors. Theory suggests that how auditors begin these inquiries (e.g., using small talk) may influence managers' behavior. Through two experiments, we find that managers with higher psychological ownership are more likely to respond defensively to an audit inquiry relating to a potential inventory obsolescence issue. Additionally, we find that the use of professional small talk magnifies managers’ defensive responses and some evidence that social small talk helps mitigate defensive responses. Further, small talk improves the perceived rapport between the manager and the auditor, compared to no small talk.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101592"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143800100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2021, a social movement rallying retail investors unexpectedly shocked Wall Street, forcing a prominent multi-billion-dollar hedge fund to shut down one year later, after incurring massive financial losses. Social movements in financial markets have significantly developed in the wake of the 2007–09 financial crisis, resulting in the emergence of various collective actions. We analyze one recent example of such action undertaken by the r/WallStreetBets (WSB) community on Reddit, which disrupted the stock prices of several “meme stocks” (e.g., GameStop) by disseminating influential investment narratives. We analyze the 150 most upvoted Due Diligence posts on WSB and interview eight members of its community. We find that a popular expertise in investment narratives emerged, developed, and was propagated on this digital platform. WSB authors' claim to popular expertise is made in a hybrid language combining traditional financial expertise with an accessible and entertaining writing style, complemented by references to pop culture. Our analysis brings out a growing resentment among retail investors about the unfairness of financial markets, and its role in mobilizing them for collective action that challenged the existing order of things. Yet this widespread resentment did not spontaneously translate into a meaningful, sustainable collective action initiative. Our thesis is that the development of popular expertise played an instrumental role in the formation of WSB's collective action initiative targeting several perceived investment opportunities.
{"title":"Shaping collective action in financial markets through popular expertise: An analysis of Due Diligence posts on WallStreetBets","authors":"Yves Gendron , Alexandre Madelaine , Luc Paugam , Hervé Stolowy","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2024.101588","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aos.2024.101588","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 2021, a social movement rallying retail investors unexpectedly shocked Wall Street, forcing a prominent multi-billion-dollar hedge fund to shut down one year later, after incurring massive financial losses. Social movements in financial markets have significantly developed in the wake of the 2007–09 financial crisis, resulting in the emergence of various collective actions. We analyze one recent example of such action undertaken by the r/WallStreetBets (WSB) community on Reddit, which disrupted the stock prices of several “meme stocks” (e.g., GameStop) by disseminating influential investment narratives. We analyze the 150 most upvoted Due Diligence posts on WSB and interview eight members of its community. We find that a popular expertise in investment narratives emerged, developed, and was propagated on this digital platform. WSB authors' claim to popular expertise is made in a hybrid language combining traditional financial expertise with an accessible and entertaining writing style, complemented by references to pop culture. Our analysis brings out a growing resentment among retail investors about the unfairness of financial markets, and its role in mobilizing them for collective action that challenged the existing order of things. Yet this widespread resentment did not spontaneously translate into a meaningful, sustainable collective action initiative. Our thesis is that the development of popular expertise played an instrumental role in the formation of WSB's collective action initiative targeting several perceived investment opportunities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101588"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143511551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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