In such a work context, the impact of the individual’s commitment to professional values may be reduced as a result of the conflicting signals and contradictions residing within the firm (McNair, 1991) and/or the significant influence of internal discourses and practices focused on the economics of auditing (Covaleski et al., 1998; Dirsmith et al., 1997). It is therefore reasonable to posit that the public accountant can come to see the profession’s independence standards as a constraint that needs to be dealt with rather than as an overarching principle of audit practice – even when the individual is quite involved in traditional areas of work. Therefore, we expect that the effect of the level of accountants’ involvement in core accounting or auditing work on their commitment towards independence will differ with their organization setting. We hypothesize the following: