The Impact of Receiving Peer Help and a Manager's Reputation for On-The-Spot Rewards on Novice Auditors' Task Performance

Abstract

Auditors often receive help from peers, especially when performing novel tasks, such as data visualization, which facilitates timely audits and promotes teamwork. Psychology research identifies two types of help individuals can receive: empowering help (providing the full solution and tools to solve the problem on their own) and non-empowering help (providing the full solution without tools to solve the problem on their own). To promote this kind of helping behavior, firms have instituted on-the-spot rewards programs, though the extent to which individual supervisors use these rewards varies. I predict that the type of help provided (empowering or non-empowering) and supervisors' reputation for giving on-the-spot rewards (absence or presence) will jointly impact novice auditors' current and perceived future task performance. In an experiment, when performing data visualization, in the absence of a supervisor's reputation for providing on-the-spot rewards, auditors who receive empowering help, rather than non-empowering help, feel a greater sense of ownership. This leads to more accurate audit procedures, better client evidence requests, and greater perceived ability to perform future tasks. However, in the presence of a supervisor's reputation for rewards, auditors perceive that the help provider has ulterior motives, which diminishes the performance difference between empowering and non-empowering help. Therefore, certain audit firms' rewards programs can have unintended effects on firms' efforts to enhance team culture.