Identifying and conceptualizing the effective factors on professional turnover intention in Audit profession

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph. D Candidate, Department of Accounting, Shahid Beheshti University, Faculty of Management and Accounting, Tehran, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, Shahid Beheshti University, Faculty of Management and Accounting, Tehran, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, Shahid Beheshti University, Faculty of Management and Accounting, Tehran, Iran

10.22099/jaa.2022.41825.2180

Abstract

Introduction
One of the major problems that audit profession is faced with is that auditors quit after a short period of employment in audit firms, and before they can become members of the relevant professional community (Gertsson et al., 2017). According to the results of research by Hiltebeitel and Leauby (2001), more than half of the people who had chosen audit as their profession, have left the field during the past three years, the audit profession in Iran is not an exception.
According to the received information from Securities & Exchange Organization (SEO), as of March 2019, average retention period for auditors who worked in its trusted firms was 574 days which is too low in comparison with global statistics.
This amount of staff turnover poses challenges for audit firms and ultimately the audit profession because hiring and training new staff is costly (Chi et al., 2012), estimated by Hiltebeitel and Leauby (2001) at 150% of annual staff salaries. Also, because the organizational structure in audit firms is pyramidal and firms need more low-level staff than high-ranking staff, the departure of auditors and the recruitment of new auditors indicate a waste of time and imposition of the observed and latent costs (reducing in productivity) to audit firms (Rezazadeh et al., 2008) and finally the audit profession.
In addition to the high cost that staff turnover imposes on audit firms, the inability to retain experienced and capable staff, threatens the skills of audit teams, which makes audit quality vulnerable (Chi et al., 2012). Furthermore, due to the loss of expertise and the lack of specialized staff, firms are reluctant to accept some of their customers and so they earn less revenue (Moradi et al., 2016).
Despite the concerns of the regulators regarding the importance of retention of specialized staff in the profession, and the reports published in other countries regarding the significant challenge of retention of employees in the profession (Chi et al., 2012), no empirical and comprehensive research has been conducted on the factors affecting turnover in the audit profession.
 
 Research Question
This research seeks to identify and conceptualize the factors influencing professional turnover intention among the auditors in the audit profession and ultimately provide the effective factors in the form of a comprehensive model.
 
 Methods
In order to incorporate established theories in the theory development process the concept of Multi Grounded Theory (MGT) is proposed. MGT can be viewed as a reaction against GT and tries to combine certain aspects from Inductivism and deductivism. MGT is not only empirically grounded; it is also grounded in other ways. Three different grounding processes are acknowledged: theoretical, empirical, and internal grounding.
In this paper, MGT was used to configure a comprehensive model for explaining the influencing factors on professional turnover intention among Iranian auditors. This method was applied by combination of analysis of the data from the systematic review of related studies which were available on Journal’s online database and interviews with 18 experts who were selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods.
 
 Results
The abovementioned method led to development of a model in four groups: Conditions (Individual factors, Occupational factors, Intra-organizational link, Characteristics of Audit Institutions, Organizational climate, Occupational / Organizational attitude, Audit fee and Progress in career path),  Context (Factors in Macro level and at Profession level), Actions and interactions (dissatisfaction with current situation and professional turnover intention) and Consequences (Decrease in audit profession position, Decrease in audit quality and Expenses exposed in the profession)
 
 Discussion and Conclusion
A literature review in this field which is the first step of Multi-grounded theory indicated that each of the previous researchers selectively examined the relationship between some variables and the auditors’ turnover intention, while in none of them, have the factors affecting turnover intention been identified or explained so comprehensively. Therefore, the results of this study include all the factors extracted from the studies and that are consistent with other studies in this regard. On the other hand, the present study provides a more comprehensive model compared to previous studies with new analysis and classification.
According to the findings of the present study, the factors affecting the auditors’ turnover intention can be classified in different levels. Profession’s policy makers by controlling professional factors, audit partners by controlling Characteristics of Audit Institutions and attempting to improve organizational climate, managers and supervisors by improving Intra-organizational links and recruiters by considering individual factors and applicants’ attitudes can use the results of the research to influence professional turnover intention among auditors in audit profession.
Finally, some suggestions are presented for future research. 
 
Keywords: Auditing, Turnover intention, Meta Synthesis, Multi-grounded theory
 

Keywords

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Journal of Accounting Advances
Volume 13, Issue 2 - Serial Number 81
December 2021
Pages 269-309

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History

  • Receive Date: 28 September 2021
  • Revise Date: 30 January 2022
  • Accept Date: 30 January 2022

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