Human resource management issues in audit firms: a research agenda

John A. Brierley Sheffield University Management School, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK David R. Gwilliam School of Management and Business, University of Wales Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth, UK

Keywords

Human resource management, Auditors, Staffing, Career development

Introduction
Human resource management involves issues like the recruitment, socialization and acculturation, job satisfaction, organizational and professional commitment, promotion, retention and turnover of staff. Human resource management issues within audit firms are important because the audit environment is a highly contingent one, particularly for staff below managerial level[1]. Auditors have to adapt to new physical locations and travel arrangements, different clients with the associated different personnel and accounting systems, work with different groups of fellow auditors on different audits and are under pressure to meet deadlines for the completion of the audit. It is also a strongly hierarchical environment, and one within which staff at all levels may regard themselves as being continually accountable for their work through the need to account via time sheets for each hour, or sub-division thereof of work (see Coffey, 1994; AndersonGough et al., 2001), and for their work to be subject to continual review. Adding to this contingent environment is the problem that the pattern of audit work is not spread evenly. For example, in the UK a high proportion of companies have 31 December year-ends whose audits tend to take place in the first half of the calendar year. As a consequence, the latter part of the summer has traditionally been a very quiet period for audit firms. To some extent this is compensated by the ability to use staff interchangeably on audit and non-audit engagements, but this may be limited by the need for particular specialist skills for services outside audit which junior audit staff may not possess. As a consequence of the above, the management of audit firm staff is an important part of the operation of the audit firm.
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Abstract

This paper discusses the contribution and value of research into human resource management issues as they affect auditors and audit firms, and to identify areas for future research. The contribution and areas for future research are identified in terms of four areas, namely career development, staffing patterns, the multi-disciplinery global firm, and the management structure and practice as they relate to audit firms. This is followed by a discussion about the value of this research. In the conclusion the paper argues for future research to adopt a greater sociological and organizational perspective, including studies which work shadow auditors and audit teams, and longitudinal studies.

Managerial Auditing Journal 18/5 [2003] 431-438 # MCB UP Limited [ISSN 0268-6902] [DOI 10.1108/02686900310476891]

The rise in the profile of human resource management and changes in the manner in which it is conducted within audit firms have accompanied, and have been a response to, the transformation of the larger audit firms from relatively modest sized entities grounded in a distinct profession to today's conglomerate firms. This transformation has led to changes like the adoption of the pyramidic staffing structure. Whereas in the past being an audit clerk or an audit manager could be a career in itself[2], this is unlikely to be possible today. The pyramidic staffing structure illustrates that to be successful in an audit firm one has to progress up the organizational hierarchy towards partnership or leave the firm (AndersonGough et al., 1998). This staffing structure possesses the advantage of generating a high degree of internal competition where the rewards for success are considerable. For example, for the year ended 30 September 2000 the KPMG UK annual report indicated that the average income per partner was 417,000 and the income of the senior partner exceeded 1.6m. Having said this, there are also disadvantages arising from firms investing heavily in training and yet retaining staff for such a short period of time. Excessive competition for promotion within audit firms may lead to dysfunctional staff behaviour and leave the firm exposed in terms of audit quality. Furthermore rapid staff turnover and the use of inexperienced staff on audit assignments may irritate clients (Hermanson et al., 1995), and reduce audit quality (Hughes, R., 2000). Although in the past individuals within firms have moved into other specialist areas in the accounting and audit firm, having trained in audit this may no longer be appropriate as other specialisms become increasingly important within firms. The rigid hierarchical structure imposed by
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promotion from junior to senior grade and then through various categories of manager before achieving partnership may also have disadvantages compared with a flatter and more open structure. This has led to attempts to change the structure of the audit firm. For example, in the UK, Hawksley (1995) describes how Coopers & Lybrand sought to reduce the hierarchical structure within their firm, and Perrin (1997) discusses Ernst & Young's claims to have a more informal and flatter organizational structure than other large firms (see also Whettingsteel, 2001). In addition, ``new'' management practices and discourses have been adopted. Dirsmith et al. (1997), for example, document the rise of management by objectives in large US public accounting firms. Given this situation, one may expect human resource management practices to be reasonably homogenous across audit firms. However, there are marked differences between large, and small and medium-sized firms. This can be illustrated in terms of the cost of training student (or staff) accountants in the UK. One large London firm estimated that, over the three years of their training contract, student accountants earn positive returns to the firm of up to 10,000. In contrast, a small regional firm with a lower charge-out rate to clients estimated that students cost a net 10,000 to train (Boyer, 1995)[3]. The recognition of the importance of human resource management within audit firms has led to interest in whether there is a role for research in assisting audit firms in developing their human resource management strategies and policies. In a US context, Belkaoui (1989, p. 115) called for such research in the following terms:
The primary asset of the certified public accounting firm is its professional staff. The success of the firm depends on motivating them, retaining them and keeping them satisfied. Research on human resource considerations in the public accounting firms is therefore necessary in order to identify the factors that create the ideal atmosphere for members of accounting firms to function efficiently and be satisfied with their jobs.

Having said this, in the last quarter of a century there has developed, largely in the USA, a significant body of academic research into human resource management issues as they affect auditors working in audit firms. It is not our aim to review this research in this paper, although the interested reader is referred to Brierley and Gwilliam (2001) who review the results of this research in terms of ten areas which have preoccupied researchers[4]. The approach, focus and methodology of much of this research has resulted in its publication in academic journals in a form that is not immediately accessible to human resource managers in audit firms. The objectives of this paper are to discuss the contribution and value of research into human resource management issues as they affect auditors and audit firms, and to identify areas for future research. To assist us in these objectives we refer to ideas and perspectives derived from a series of unstructured and untaped interviews conducted by the second author with human resource managers in the London offices of each of the Big 5 accounting and audit firms. These interviews sought to obtain an understanding of the importance of human resource management issues in audit firms and the awareness of academic research into these issues. The remainder of the paper is organised into two further sections. The next section identifies research issues and opportunities for further research relevant to human resource management of auditors in large audit firms. These issues are career development, staffing patterns, the multidisciplinery global firm, and management practice, and this is followed by a discussion of the value of this research. The final section offers some conclusions.

Research issues and opportunities for future research

The majority of research into human resource management in audit firms has been conducted by US researchers. When compared to, for example, the UK academic community there are obviously far more accounting academics in the USA, but there are also differences in the relationship between the academic community and audit firms in the USA and in countries like the UK. UK audit firms have traditionally been much less willing than their US counterparts to provide research sites for academic researchers. It is also arguable that UK academic researchers have been less attracted to the type of behavioural

A number of commentators have echoed this call for further investigation and research. Dirsmith et al. (1997, p. 5) suggest that the large accounting and audit firms represent ``the most under researched organization based profession to emerge as a direct consequence of commercial enterprise'', while Anderson-Gough et al. (1998, p. 29) note that ``there has been remarkably little study of the recruitment training and socializing of accountants''.

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accounting research which has a strong statistical underpinning within which the majority of studies in this area are based. This involves hypothesising relationships between certain constructs based upon prior theory and testing for the existence of these hypothesised relationships. Based upon the results of prior research the research issues are described below.

Career development
Gender
A number of studies have highlighted the low proportion of women in the higher reaches of audit firms (for reviews see Pillsbury et al., 1989; Fogarty, 1997), compared with the almost equal numbers of men and women who are recruited by the firms. These studies suggest that the perceptions and realities of audit firms as male dominated organizations have contributed to this disparity. In the USA Anderson et al. (1994) used a case study methodology to find that female auditors were perceived as less likely to achieve partnership and that the interaction between family circumstances and gender was significant for female staff, which the authors argue is consistent with a scenario whereby family responsibilities are seen as a barrier to the promotion of women. In a more recent study adopting a similar methodology, Lowe et al. (2001) found females were more likely than males to achieve normal promotion to partnership in large offices, but not in small offices. They note that this may mean that gender initiative programs may not be operating consistently across offices. The interviews carried out with senior personnel holding human resource management responsibilities in each of the Big 5 UK audit firms confirmed the importance of gender related issues, but there were different views as to whether the relativity low numbers of women advancing to partnership level, or its equivalent, indicated a failure in human resource management terms or whether this was a result of individual and societal characteristics largely beyond the control of the firms. We concur with Street et al.'s (1993) call for further research to investigate whether more overt discriminatory practices, such as less challenging work assignments, differential performance and tokenism, act to limit the opportunities for women to be promoted within audit firms.

Acculturation and socialization

Within the human resource management literature, organizational socialization refers to the manner in which employees learn the

attitides and behaviors necessary in order to accomplish their role within organizations[5]. The process of acculturation and socialization into the audit firm begins when new recruits join and is influenced heavily by learning from and observing peers and immediate superiors (Morrison, 1993). From an early stage audit staff appreciate the need to use their skills and personality characteristics within an organizational ethos which places an emphasis on conformity. In the development of skills it is important to interact with and emulate other members of the organization in terms of how they act, think and even look (Anderson-Gough et al., 1998). The pyramidic staffing structure, and the expectation of many recruits that they will leave within a relatively short time after completing their training and qualifying as a professional accountant suggests that organziational commitment may be relatively low unless staff consider a longterm career with the audit firm. Over time the acculturation process is likely to result in higher organizational commitment, but the extent to which professional commitment develops and whether professional commitment can be distinguished from organizational commitment is uncertain (Norris and Niebuhr, 1984; Anderson-Gough et al., 1998). It can be argued that in auditing the concept of being a professional has little meaning outside of an organizational context. Auditors in the large firms are likely to obtain an understanding of the term professional from the culture and values of their firm. Professional accounting bodies intrude little, if at all, in the professionalization process. This may have advantages from a human resource management perspective in that the potential for conflict between the organizational objectives of client service and growth, and professional objectives of emphasising ethics and public service, is likely to be reduced. This does, however, raise wide issues as to the nature of professionalism in auditing and the relationship between the large audit firms and the professional accounting bodies and should be examined in further research. One aspect of the process of career development which has received relatively little research attention is that of the role of formal training within firms. At lower levels in the firm this training is likely to focus on specific audit methods, and may interrelate with preparation for professional examinations. At higher levels training courses for new managers and partners will focus on issues such as appraisal, review,

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leadership, client management, team management, and the internal management structure and organization of the firm. Some studies have touched on aspects of the role of formal training, for example Morrison (1993) suggested that internal documentation and manuals were less important sources of information than questioning peers and superiors, and Wright (1980, 1988) identified the lack of formal training about performance appraisal techniques. There have been few studies, however, which have focused directly on the role and function of training. We consider that this is an area for future research. We believe formal career development and guidance mechanisms within audit firms take second place to immediate needs like staff availability for audit work and audit work scheduling. Informal mentoring procedures, however, have assumed great importance in aiding and guiding an individual's career path within firms. In today's larger audit firms there are more formal mechanisms of counselling and support, more opportunity for transfer to other departments within the firm, and a greater transparency in promotion procedures. How effective these are in achieving their objectives and the extent to which they have supplanted more informal procedures with their emphasis on networking and patronage are interesting questions and could be studied in the future. In the majority of research the focus has been on relatively lower-level staff members, typically at audit senior level or below. The pyramidic staffing structure means that lower-level staff significantly outnumber higher-level staff, and acculturation and the development of attitudes to work may be presumed to be at their most significant in the initial stages of employment with an audit firm. Furthermore, it is arguable that because of the unusual staffing structure of audit firms the interesting human resource management issues are those relating to lower-level staff. However, human resource management is important at all levels within a firm and a number of research questions need to be addressed. How are managerial staff identified as being suitable for partnership? At what stage are staff counselled that they are unlikely to achieve partnership? How have managerial structures adapted to reflect the dramatic growth in the size of firms? It may be that there has been a disproportionate research focus on lower-level staff and audit teams at the expense of issues relating to higher-level staff.

Staffing patterns
Perhaps the single most distinctive feature of human resource management in audit firms is the pyramidic staffing structure whereby each year large numbers of very able graduates are recruited[6], of which only a small proportion will in time achieve partnership status within the firm. The path to partnership has traditionally been clearly defined in terms of a series of promotions at relatively predetermined intervals. At almost every interval failure to achieve the relevant promotion in a timely fashion indicates that the individual's chance of attaining partnership is remote. There have been perennial concerns as to the cost of employing and training such large numbers of staff whose tenure in the firm is relatively short, and the problems of planning and ensuring continuity of client service against a background of high staff turnover (for discussions in the UK, see Wyman (1997), and in the USA see Bullen and Flamholtz (1985) and Hermanson et al. (1995)). This policy, however, has proved to be robust and still forms the basic staffing pattern in the large audit firms. However, the interviewees did suggest that it is becoming less rigid in its application and that a more flexible career pattern is developing, including the prospect of long-term careers within audit firms for those who do not achieve partnership or equivalent status (see Oppenheimer et al., 2001; Whettingsteel, 2001). One factor contributing to this change has been the relative decline in the importance of audit and audit related services within the overall range of services provided by the firms. The pyramidic staffing structure is essentially a feature of audit; employment patterns in taxation and consulting have been different, although in the past these differences have been partially obscured by the significant transfers of personnel from audit to taxation and, to a lesser extent, to consulting. As other functional areas within the firm have assumed increasing importance a staffing pattern predicated on the particular needs of audit has become challenged. Other factors which have acted to disturb the rigidity of the structure have been a greater willingness of the firms to provide opportunities for career breaks, flexible working and part-time work for professional staff. These changes have in part been a response to the much higher proportion of women working for the firms. The changing nature of management and control within the firms may also be relevant, job titles and status are no longer as rigidly defined and the achievement of

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partnership is not necessarily the only yardstick by which success is measured within the firm. It would be wrong to exaggerate the extent and nature of this change, as yet it has been tentative, but there may be the beginnings of a significant paradigm shift toward what many would see from a human resource management viewpoint as a more conventional and cost effective staffing structure. The extent to which these changes continue in the future could form part of a future research project.

The multi-disciplinary global firm

The large accounting and audit firms can be described as global professional service conglomerates. Even within the traditional functional disciplines of audit, taxation and consultancy there is today a vast array of different services provided such as human resources and legal practice (SingletonGreen, 2001). Here a number of questions arise as to the role of human resource management in accommodating, and possibly encouraging, ways of conducting business within the various functional areas of the large accounting and audit firms, while at the same time presenting to the outside world an impression of unity in terms of external image. Underlying these concerns are the strategic issues of how to manage these conglomerates. Recently the forces which have acted to maintain unity of purpose within the firms, such as the benefits of trading under a single brand name and the substantial overlap between audit and nonaudit services within the client base have proved insufficient to prevent the pressure to demerge consultancy from audit and other services (Accountancy, 2000a,b,c,d). Having said this, accounting and audit firms can retain an in-house consultancy service. One reason for this is that it assists with recruitment by offering more in career opportunities to potential employees (Hughes, S., 2000, see also House, 2000)[7]. The role of the human resource management function in identifying different roles within the functional areas and also in acting as an agent for change is one that warrants further research. Related to the issue of the multidisciplinery nature of large audit firms are those which arise as a consequences of globalization. Here again there are forces like the need to achieve an equivalent level of service in all countries, and the need to integrate the work force on an international basis which call for uniformity in human

resource management practices across the firms worldwide. There are differences, however, in the commercial and cultural environments within which the various national firms work. The advantages of identical firm structures are seen in terms of engendering a unified purpose on an international basis as well as being relevant to more practical issues like the transfer and secondment of staff between countries. The need to service clients on an international basis is likely to strengthen the pressures for greater uniformity but there are likely to be significant obstacles to the introduction of common human resource management practices. The extent to which these obstacles exist and can be overcome could be the subject of future research.

Management structure and practice

The management structure of the large firms has shifted away from the traditional partnership model to bear a much closer resemblance to the styles and structures of organizational control employed by their corporate clients (Dirsmith et al., 1997). The increasing importance of ``management'' as a function in its own right raises questions as to possible tensions between the providers of professional services and those who seek to manage and organize that provision. Areas for further study include the nature and practice of ``managerialism'' in audit firms on a national and international basis, and the extent to which managerial power has been retained by professional accountants in audit firms or whether it has been usurped by ``managers'' who are not specialists in the services provided by audit firms. Although there are differences between the firms in terms of the responsibilities, staffing and visibility of the human resource management function itself, we believe that control and power in audit firms has been retained by partners, or those with equivalent status, originating from a client service background. In audit firms the direct link between revenue, profit and client management means that internal credibility and power still resides with staff who are or, to an extent, have been ``client facing''. One factor which has contributed to a culture with an intensive focus on the attainment of short-term performance targets has been the perception that the main objective within the firms has been the growth of revenue and partnership income. Failure to exceed or at least match the growth of competitor firms is perceived to result in a loss of status, loss of

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clients and make the firm vulnerable to takeover. Here again there are a number of research questions as to how this key emphasis on growth and the achievement of targets in terms of income and profitability interact with other long-term management objectives, such as developing and portraying both internally and externally sets of values in terms of culture, ethics and quality.

familiarity with specific audit procedures, the applicability of the research to their own audit problems and the desire to maintain the confidentiality of the results of their research.

Conclusion
The widespread reliance on the measurement and statistical inference in prior research has perhaps resulted in insufficient emphasis being placed upon other methods of enquiry and research. There have been few studies which have made use either of interviews or of more widely based case study methodology. A notable exception in a UK context is Anderson-Gough et al. (1998). This study also provides a discussion of wider issues relating to research in the social sciences and the strengths and weaknesses of various methodological approaches. What sociological and organizational research methods may lack in terms of statistical rigour may be compensated by a greater richness in the way in which they reflect the varying perspectives of subjects and their complex work environments. Further research of this type includes the manner in which the unusual recruitment patterns and staffing structures of the large audit firms have contributed to and interacted with their sustained growth into the phenomenon which are today multinational and multi-functional professional service firms. It might include examination of the role of these firms as educators and trainers and their contribution to the wider commercial environment in terms of providing so many graduates with their first experience of the nature and realities of commerce and industry. It might entail investigation of the meaning and nature of professionalism within these firms and explore the implications thereof. In addition, there have been few studies in which the methodology has included participation in or work shadowing auditors and audit teams, exceptions include studies which have carried out work shadowing at partner level (Baker, 1977; Dirsmith et al., 1997). The majority of prior studies have been cross-sectional rather than longitudinal in that they have focused on measuring perceptions and attitudes at a particular point in time rather than on comparisons between surveys carried out at differing points in time or tracking employees through time[8]. Devising and employing methodologies appropriate to a wider set of research questions will be a challenging task,

The value of research

The final issue we address is the impact of academic research on professional practice. In his review of audit judgement research Trotman (1998) suggests that this research has had a significant impact on practice. We would suggest that to make such a claim in the context of research into human resource management in audit on audit firms would be difficult to justify. In the context of the UK the direct impact of the research has been minimal, although the human resource managers we interviewed were interested in many of the issues covered by the studies, none of them had any knowledge of this research. Nor did they consider that others in their firm would have an awareness. Whether there have been indirect influences, either in terms of research findings feeding through into the more professional human resource management and accounting/ business journals, or via ideas and influences from US practices, is more difficult to gauge although we would suggest that any such influences have been at best muted and diffuse. One factor which may affect this lack of practical application is a refereeing process in academic journals which focuses on rigour of research design and methodological innovation, rather than on either the relevance of the research topic or the value of the research results to practitioners. The importance of publication in key academic journals to the career development and status of academic researchers cannot be overstated, and is likely to far outweigh any concerns as to the direct applicability of the results to those outside academia. Issues like the accessibility, focus and timeliness of academic research in auditing in general and the more specific concerns as to the methodology of the human resource management research have contributed to a situation where this research has been seen as of marginal relevance. This may be partly because research can be conducted by large audit firms. They are able to take advantage of the resources available to them and their

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but if successfully achieved we envisage that it will enable this field of research to be of greater value both to the audit firms and to society more generally.

Notes

1 In this paper audit firm staff refers to staff who work in financial audit in accounting and audit firms, otherwise known in the UK as public practice firms and, sometimes, as chartered accountancy firms, and in the USA as public accounting or CPA firms. In large accounting and audit firms financial audit is one of a range of ``assurance services''. A special committee of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA, 1997) identified six assurance service areas which they considered to have potential for growth, namely, assurance as to business practices and integrity of electronic commerce providers, assurance as to the quality of health care provision, assurance that systems are designed and operated to provide reliable information, risk based assessment of the likelihood and magnitude of adverse events, assurance as to the quality of provision for the elderly, and assurance as to the relevance and reliability of entity performance measures. 2 For example, almost half of the employees of Price Waterhouse in 1936 had been with the firm for more than ten years (Jones, 1995). 3 Having said this, when referring to the costs of training student accountants in the UK in general, Wyman (1997) suggests that the revenue generated by student accountants during their three-year training contract is not sufficient to cover the costs of employing and training them. 4 The ten areas are personality and needs, stress, socialization and feedback, career development, leadership and mentoring, job satisfaction, professional and organizational commitment, staff turnover, performance appraisal and determinants of job performance. 5 For a discussion of professional and organizational socialization with a particular reference to accounting, see Anderson-Gough et al. (1998). 6 For example, in the UK more than threequarters of the graduates registering for training contracts in 1999 with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales possessed a good degree (a first class or upper second class degree) (ICAEW, 2000). 7 Although Ernst & Young and KPMG have demerged their consultancy practices, they have retained some consultancy type services like corporate finance and business advisory services (House, 2000). 8 For an exception see Dirsmith et al. (1997).

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