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.