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2023B04 – The organizational setting of Big 4 and mid-sized audit firms and audit quality
Project Number – 2023B04
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2023B04 – The organizational setting of Big 4 and mid-sized audit firms and audit quality

What?

What?

In their effort to uphold their public responsibility and provide high quality assurance, audit firms’ most important input is audit talent. When auditors enter the profession, their talent is mainly shaped by skills and expertise acquired via education. Once in the audit firm, auditors integrate their entry skills and expertise with those acquired through on-the-job learning. Finally, as long as auditors are retained by the audit firm, their talent contributes to audit outcomes. Despite the relevance of the life cycle of audit talent for audit outcomes, research on this topic is limited and mainly gravitates around audit partners and managers.

Why?

In this project, we aim to contribute to this scant body of research by unraveling the dynamics behind an auditor’s life cycle and investigate whether and how the auditor’s life cycle differs between Big 4 and mid-sized audit firms. In a first study, we will examine the attraction of audit talent by examining student perceptions of the audit profession. In a second study, we will examine the retention of audit talent by focusing on auditors’ decisions to leave the auditing profession. In a third study, we will investigate how auditors acquire and develop their skills and expertise while working in an audit firm by studying auditors’ on-the-job learning. In all three studies, which will focus on Dutch auditing firms, we will compare Big 4 audit firms and mid-sized audit firms. By doing so, we aim to contribute to the public debate and the academic literature suggesting that Big 4 and mid-sized audit firms differ along several labor market dimensions.

The Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing – A Comparison of Student Expectations and Auditor Experiences

To investigate whether student expectations match with early-career realities at Big 4 and midsized audit firms, we analyze survey responses from 344 Dutch business and accounting students and 161 junior auditors. The findings reveal that students consistently misjudge key aspects of the junior auditor role: they underestimate attractive features - such as intellectual challenge, client interaction, and autonomy -and overestimate less appealing features, including repetitiveness and overtime. These misperceptions are particularly pronounced for Big 4 audit firms. Moreover, a larger expectations-reality gap for job content and organizational culture significantly decreases students’ likelihood of pursuing an audit career. Our results highlight the need to improve the accuracy of student expectations to help address the audit talent shortage. Yet, our analyses show that conventional outreach methods, with the exception of in-house days, have limited impact, suggesting a need for alternative approaches to better align student expectations with the realities of audit work.
External →publications.aaahq.org
MAB Research Article – Werken bij een Big 4- of non-Big 4-kantoor: werk-privébalans, professionele ontwikkeling en persoonlijkheidskenmerken
Voor studenten en jonge accountants is de keuze tussen een Big 4- en een non-Big 4-kantoor belangrijk voor hun verdere loopbaan. Inzicht in de verschillen tussen Big 4- en non-Big 4-kantoren kan deze kantoren helpen bij het aantrekken, ontwikkelen en behouden van talent. Op basis van een vragenlijst onder 161 werkzame jonge accountants in de controlepraktijk bij Nederlandse Big 4- en non-Big 4-kantoren is onderzocht of jonge accountants verschillen ervaren in hun werk-privébalans en ontwikkelingsmogelijkheden. Ook is onderzocht of bij een Big 4- of non-Big 4-kantoor werkzame jonge accountants verschillende persoonlijkheidskenmerken hebben. De onderzoeksresultaten wijzen op een duidelijke afweging tussen werkdruk enerzijds en ontwikkelinfrastructuur anderzijds. Kantoren kunnen deze afweging gebruiken om zich te positioneren ten aanzien van potentiële medewerkers.
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Literature Review – The Auditor Career Path: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda
While prior studies have examined specific aspects of attracting and retaining qualified auditors, an integrative framework for understanding the different stages of an auditor career and how these stages interact over time to shape auditor human capital and professional identity is lacking. We address this gap by synthesizing the literature along the Auditor Career Path framework, which we conceptualize as comprising six stages: Attraction, Recruitment, Onboarding, Development, Retention, and Separation. By organizing and integrating existing research within this framework, we identify gaps in the current understanding of auditors’ career paths, including how frictions and interventions at one stage propagate to others, and derive insights to help audit firms more effectively attract, develop, and retain their human capital, while also outlining a research agenda that connects these stages for future work.
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Narrowing the Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing: Implications for Recruiting and Developing the Next Generation of Auditors
Audit firms across jurisdictions face a persistent and increasingly acute challenge in attracting and retaining early-career audit talent. A commonly cited explanation for this trend is that today’s students and junior professionals are less willing to accept the demanding working conditions traditionally associated with auditing. While workload and work-life balance undoubtedly play an important role, this explanation implicitly assumes that students possess an accurate understanding of what early-career audit work actually entails. We argue that this assumption is questionable. Drawing on evidence from our recent Accounting Horizons study (Dierynck, Marangoni, Peters, and Weijers 2025), we suggest that an important, but underappreciated, driver of the audit talent shortage is an expectations-reality gap: a systematic mismatch between what students believe the junior auditor role involves and what junior auditors actually experience in practice. Understanding this gap is critical for audit practice. If students base their career decisions on inaccurate or overly pessimistic beliefs about audit work, firms may lose potential entrants before recruitment efforts can meaningfully engage them. Moreover, misaligned expectations at entry may contribute to early dissatisfaction and turnover, further weakening the talent pipeline.
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Human Capital Development in Auditing: A Qualitative Study of Learning Mechanisms, Challenges, and Differences across Audit Firms
Human capital is the most crucial input in auditing. While auditors possess skills and competencies when entering the audit firm, on-the-job learning is crucial for the further development of human capital. While prior research has typically focused on one specific learning mechanism, there is a lack of a comprehensive and holistic view of how learning currently manifests in the audit practice. Using 23 semi-structured interviews, this study provides an overview of key learning practices in audit firms, the differences in learning practices between audit firms of different sizes, and barriers to learning in audit firms. This study helps researchers to understand the institutional setting of learning in audit firms and to identify future avenues for research. Furthermore, this study helps practitioners in identifying barriers to learning that may warrant attention.
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The first decade of the FAR: past, present and future
This commemorative booklet marks the tenth anniversary of the Foundation for Auditing Research (FAR). It reflects on FAR’s journey as a unique platform where academic research and audit practice meet to advance audit quality. The publication highlights:
  • FAR’s Mission and Impact: How FAR evolved from an ambition into a reality, fostering collaboration between researchers and practitioners through access to real-world audit data.
  • Insights from Leadership: An interview with founding academic director Jan Bouwens and his successor Anna Gold on FAR’s achievements, challenges, and future priorities.
  • Research Highlights: Four featured studies on topics such as auditors’ commercial efforts, student expectations versus auditor experiences, data analytics and professional skepticism, and learning within audit teams.
  • Key Figures and Projects: An overview of FAR’s outputs, including practice notes, masterclasses, conferences, and a growing portfolio of research projects.
The booklet not only looks back with pride but also outlines ambitions for the future of strengthening knowledge transfer, increasing practical usability of research, and deepening engagement across audit firms and academia.
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The Expectations-Reality Gap in Auditing – A Comparison of Student Expectations and Auditor Experiences
The findings of the study reveal that students consistently misjudge key aspects of the junior auditor role: they underestimate attractive features – such as intellectual challenge, client interaction, and autonomy – and overestimate less appealing features, including repetitiveness and overtime. Moreover, a larger expectations-reality gap for job content and organizational culture significantly decreases students’ likelihood of pursuing an audit career. Our results highlight the need to improve the accuracy of student expectations to help address the audit talent shortage.
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Project info

Project Lead

Bart Dierynck
Bart Dierynck

Research team

Lobke Weijers
Lobke Weijers
Christian Peters
Christian Peters
Claudia Marangoni
Claudia Marangoni
Bart Dierynck
Bart Dierynck

Involved University

Tilburg University
University of Wisconsin
Project Number – 2023B04

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