Audit team time reporting: An agency theory perspective
While some research suggests that explicit incentives to meet time budgets have recently
been reduced at audit firms, there is also evidence indicating that audit seniors and staff
still feel at least implicit pressure to meet budgets. We examine the possibility that both
of these findings tell a part of the story. Specifically, we explore whether, and under what
conditions, seniors and staff are implicitly encouraged to underreport time through future
engagement staffing decisions and the performance evaluation process. Further, we consider
the extent to which agency theory can serve as a framework for understanding
how the incentives of audit managers and partners influence how they view underreporting
by their engagement staff. We place participants in a scenario in which they are
responsible for evaluating an engagement senior who appears to have worked more hours
than were budgeted. We manipulate the senior’s reporting accuracy (underreporting versus
accurate reporting) and the desirability of the client (more versus less desirable). We find
that, whenmanagers’ agency-related incentives conflict more strongly with those of the firm
(more desirable client), they tend to tacitly encourage underreporting through their evaluations
of the senior’s performance. Managers are also more likely to request an underreporter
on a future engagement. In contrast, partners placed in the same setting show no evidence of
encouraging underreporting. Thus, our results suggest that managers’ tacit encouragement
of underreporting is contrary to what the ‘‘principals’’ of the firm (i.e., partners) appear to
want. Further, while firms may have reduced their emphasis on formal, explicit incentives
to underreport, it appears likely that implicit manager incentives persist.
Conclusions
Utilizing an agency theory framework, we consider how
the incentives of audit managers and partners influence
how they view underreporting by their engagement staff.
Our study advances the literature on underreporting of
time by taking a first step toward tying together the findings
of prior studies, which suggest both: (a) reduced
emphasis on meeting time budgets as a formal performance
metric (Buchheit et al., 2003) and (b) audit seniors
still feel pressure to underreport (Sweeney & Pierce,
2006). We find that, when managers’ agency-related
incentives conflict more strongly with those of the firm,
managers tend to tacitly encourage engagement team
underreporting through their evaluations of staff performance,
even in a setting without explicit mention of time
budgets as a performance metric. We also find that managers
prefer underreporters to accurate reporters when
staffing future engagements. Thus, while firms have
reduced their emphasis on formal, explicit incentives to
underreport, it appears likely that implicit manager incentives
persist. In contrast to managers, partners placed in
the same setting show no evidence of encouraging underreporting.
Thus, our results suggest that managers’ tacit
encouragement of underreporting is contrary to what the
‘‘principals’’ of the firm (i.e., partners) appear to want.
These results have some potentially disconcerting
implications for engagement staff who are reluctant to
underreport when they exceed their time budget. Given a
manager’s influence in staffing decisions, our results suggest
a reduction in the likelihood that an accurate reporter
is assigned to desirable future engagements, which in turn
can negatively influence raises, promotions, and continued
employment. Thus, our results suggest that there is an
implicit incentive structure for engagement staff who have
exceeded their budgets and are contemplating how to
record their time. In addition, while selecting underreporters
can be beneficial to a manager’s future realization
rates, it can have negative implications for the firm and,
by extension, its ‘‘owners’’. For example, past underreporting
can lead to unrealistic current budgets. In turn, staff
who are competent, but who are reluctant to underreport
to meet such unrealistic budgets, could be underutilized
and eventually counseled out. Further, since manager
approval of underreporting is not uniform across audits,
client profitability is not uniformly affected by underreporting.
This suggests that there are likely to be significant
costing issues for firms, as the level of underreporting varies
with contextual/situational factors and the strength of
agency-related incentives in play for the manager. As a
result, the firm could be retaining unprofitable clients
and losing honest, capable employees in the process.
McNair (1991) discusses an alternate perspective that
views underreporting as a functional behavior that signals
commitment to the firm. This perspective asserts that, if
the incentive to underreport persists, its benefit to the firm
must outweigh its cost. The results obtained from our partner
sample provide some initial evidence against this alternative
perspective. That is, if underreporting is considered
a functional signal of firm commitment, then we would
expect partners (acting as their own agents) to prefer the
underreporter, which is not the case. Another contribution
of our study is that it suggests that an agency perspective
can assist researchers, regulators, and practitioners wishing
to better understand and curb the practice of underreporting.
Existing research on principal-agent conflict offers
interesting avenues to explore fresh solutions to the problem.
For example, our findings demonstrate that managers
behave more like partners (i.e., they do not prefer underreporters)
when there is no strong conflict between their
incentives and the firm’s. Audit firms, researchers, and regulators
concerned with reducing underreporting could further
explore other incentives (beyond formal, explicit
emphasis on meeting time budgets) that managers have
for encouraging the practice and, in turn, seek appropriate
remedies.
Finally, it is important to recognize when considering
our results, that we examine a setting in which there are
no explicit factors/reasons for staff to exceed budgeted
hours (i.e., it reflects unfavorably on staff). Future research
could explore settings in which there are more compelling
reasons for the overrun (e.g., the audit team uncovers an
error that necessitates additional work), as such overruns
are likely to be assessed differently by managers and partners.
Further, we utilize a multidimensional manipulation
of client desirability. Thus, it is difficult to determine the
relative influence of one dimension to another. Lastly, we
choose to place partners in the role of immediate supervisor
of the engagement senior, responsible for evaluating
the senior (i.e., the manager on the engagement). Given
this design choice, we can only offer conclusions regarding
how partners would behave if they assumed the role of
manager. It is possible that, for example, in their role as
evaluator of the engagement manager, they act differently
than they do in our study. That is, partners may act differently
when operating under their own incentive structure
and while performing partner-assigned tasks (as opposed
to when they are asked to operate under managers’ incentive
structure to perform a manager-assigned task). Future
studies could be designed to more directly address these
important questions.