Interactive organizationalcommitment and hardiness inpublic accountants’ turnover

Daniel W. LawSchool of Business Administration, Gonzaga University, Spokane,

Washington, USA

Abstract

Purpose – The overall purpose of the study is to build upon and add to a turnover model for publicaccounting. This study examines two components of organizational commitment, affective andcontinuance, and attempts to reconcile mixed results found in prior studies. An interaction of the twocomponents and the personality trait of hardiness are explored.

Design/methodology/approach – One hundred and twenty-eight public accountants from threefirms participated in the study by completing self-report questionnaires. Established scales for thevariables of interest were employed, and OLS regression was used to test hypotheses.

Findings – The results indicate that affective commitment is the most salient component ofcommitment in predicting turnover, but an interaction of continuance and affective commitment is alsosignificant. The results also indicate that hardiness is a significant personality variable in predictingturnover.

Research limitations/implications – Generalizability of results may be limited as participationwas limited to three firms. Theoretical implications include establishing the relative saliency of thecommitment components to turnover in public accountants and building the turnover model by addinga commitment interaction and personality hardiness.

Practical implications – Management of public accounting firms can better focus on strategy toemotionally attach individuals to a firm and prevent undesirable turnover. To better assist recruitersin hiring, firms can incorporate hardiness into its pre-hire fit assessment to gauge compatibility.

Originality/value – In addition to clarifying results from prior studies, this paper introducesinteractive commitment and personality hardiness to a model of public accounting turnover.

Keywords Public sector accounting, Employee turnover, Organizational analysis

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionThe profession of public accounting experiences a substantial turnover rate(Connor et al., 1999). Although some turnover is expected, substantial turnovertranslates into undesirable higher costs and efficiency losses; large accounting firmstypically incur significant recruitment and training costs for new hires (Hiltebeitel et al.,2000). As public accountants leave the profession, subsequent employers, not the firmsthemselves, often realize many of the benefits of these costs.

To better understand the antecedents of turnover in public accounting, a number ofresearchers have conducted studies examining the link between organizationalcommitment and turnover (Stallworth, 2003; Ketchand and Strawser, 1998; Kalbersand Fogarty, 1995). Collectively, these studies have demonstrated the pervasive effectsof organizational commitment on turnover intentions in the public accounting sector.Individually, the studies have examined the multidimensionality of the commitment

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Managerial Auditing JournalVol. 20 No. 4, 2005

pp. 383-393q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0268-6902DOI 10.1108/02686900510592061

construct relative to turnover in an effort to better understand what kind ofcommitment is most salient to public accounting turnover. Results have been mixedand, in two of the studies, results are opposite of each other.

The current study follows these studies by examining two salient dimensions of theorganizational commitment construct on intent to turnover in public accountants.This study also introduces personality as a potential individual antecedent to intent toturnover in public accounting.

The study contributes to the literature by building on prior models of publicaccounting turnover. Specifically, the study adds an interactive organizationalcommitment variable into the model. This approach follows compelling researchresults found in a non-accounting study. In addition, the study explores therelationship between the personality variable of hardiness and intent to turnover inpublic accountants. Results in both accounting and non-accounting studies suggestthat hardiness may be extremely significant in predicting job well being and outcomes.Finally, the study helps solidify prior results of accounting researchers regardingcommitment dimensions and turnover.

These contributions have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically,the presence of a significant interactive commitment variable may help explainopposing results in prior studies and improve the overall model fit. From a practicalstandpoint, a better understanding of commitment dynamics within the professionmay help firm management in hiring and retaining skilled accountants. Related to this,if hardiness is shown to impact turnover, personality profiles (now employed amongsome firms in placement decisions) may be significantly improved and expanded withthe addition of a hardiness scale.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: first, a review of the relevantresearch in organizational commitment, hardiness, and turnover is presented, alongwith hypotheses of interest. Second, the study’s methodology and sample aredescribed. Next, the results of testing the hypotheses are presented. Finally, the study’sresults, limitations, and implications are discussed.

Literature review and hypothesesOrganizational commitment has consistently been viewed as an important antecedentto employee retention (Mowday et al., 1982). Organizational commitment has beenoperationalized into three components: affective, continuance, and normative(Meyer and Allen, 1991). Affective commitment is defined as an emotionalattachment to an organization characterized by the acceptance of the organization’svalues and by a willingness to remain with the organization (Mowday et al., 1982).Continuance commitment reflects a commitment to an organization because ofperceived sunk costs (Somers, 1995). Additional research has identified twopossible sub-dimensions – personal sacrifice and perceived lack of employmentalternatives – within continuance commitment (McGee and Ford, 1987; Meyer et al.,1989, 1990; Dunham et al., 1994). Normative commitment is defined as a perceived dutyto support the organization (Wiener, 1982).

Meyer and Allen’s (1991) model, which synthesized these three primary componentsinto an overall measure of organizational commitment, has guided most of thecommitment research. Relative to the current study, an inverse relationship betweenorganizational commitment and turnover has consistently been identified in

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non-accounting studies (Allen, 1996; Teft and Meyer, 1993; Angle and Perry, 1981).Mathieu and Zajac (1990) examined a number of commitment studies and determinedthat, of the three components of commitment, affective commitment is the most salientin predicting intent to turnover. Subsequent other non-accounting studies yieldedsimilar results (Hackett et al., 1994; Meyer et al., 1993).

Although affective commitment appears to be the dominant component relative toturnover generally, the findings from commitment and turnover studies within thedomain of public accounting have been somewhat mixed. Kalbers and Fogarty (1995)found a significant inverse relationship between continuance commitment and intentto turnover in public accountants. Further, they found no relationship betweenaffective commmitment and intent to turnover. Conversely, following the results ofmost non-accounting studies, Ketchand and Strawser (1998) found a significantrelationship between affective commitment and intent to turnover in publicaccountants. Similarly, Stallworth (2003) recently found affective commitment to bethe most descriptive (of the three components) in its association with intent to turnoverin public accounting.

The results of these accounting studies suggest that both continuance and affectivecommitment may play an important role in turnover. Overall, the results follow largelythe results of other non-accounting studies: affective commitment appears to be thedominant component in predicting turnover. However, continuance commitment, inone study, was revealed as the most salient component. One of the purposes of thecurrent study is to revisit this issue in an attempt to better understand the commitmentconstruct in the area of public accounting turnover.

Similar to the findings of most researchers, Somers (1995), in a study looking at allthree components of commitment, found only affective commitment to be a consistentpredictor of turnover. However, in his sample of nurses, he did find that continuancecommitment interacted with affective commitment in predicting job withdrawalintentions. Specifically, high levels of continuance commitment tempered theassociation between affective commitment and intent to remain. As to a possibleexplanation of this interaction, Somers discussed the self-justification hypothesis.

Relative to commitment and turnover, the self-justification hypothesis posits thatlimited mobility resulting from high sunk costs is rationalized with perceivedincreased affective attachment to an employer to diminish feelings that one is “stuck”(Meyer et al., 1990). In other words, high levels of continuance commitment cansufficiently impact a worker’s emotional attachment to an organization; therefore,some of the affective commitment is based on rationalization.

These results, along with the somewhat mixed results from the public accountingstudies in this area, provide the basis for the following hypotheses:

H1a. Affective commitment is inversely related to turnover intentions of publicaccountants.

H1b. Continuance commitment is inversely related to turnover intentions of publicaccountants.

H1c. Continuance commitment interacts with affective commitment in predictingturnover intentions of public accountants.

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Personality traits generally remain constant over time (Maslach et al., 2001; Spectorand O’Connell, 1994), suggesting that individuals cannot simply change theirpersonalities in an effort to “feel” any less the desire to leave the organization.Of interest relative to the current study, a public accountant’s turnover intentions may,to some degree, be attributed to personality.

A review of the literature reveals that little research has been done examiningpersonality effects on commitment or turnover in public accounting. Troutman et al.(2000) examined a limited number of personality traits among public accountants in anattempt to discover causes of turnover. The results were somewhat mixed and largelyturned on gender, not personality. However, an early personality study of accountingstudents provides some direction as to what specific personality traits may affectcommitment and turnover.

Dinius and McIntyre (1979) developed a personality battery for accountants usingaccounting majors as proxies. The results of the study suggest that personality traitsfound in accounting majors include many that relate to the personality trait ofhardiness. For example, the authors noted persistence, conscientious attitude, andflexibility as key personality traits of accounting students. These are characteristicof the three components of hardiness – commitment, control, and challenge.The construct of personality hardiness, at the time of the study, was just emerging inthe psychology literature (Kobasa, 1979). The study, however, does provide some earlyevidence that hardiness may be important to the successful accountant, as thepersonality traits of accounting students are virtually indistinguishable fromprofessional accountants (Laribee, 1994).

Maddi and Kobasa (1984) define hardiness as “a general sense that the environmentis satisfying”, (p. 50) which leads a person to approach life experiences with curiosityand enthusiasm or commitment. Hardiness represents an integration of three closelyinterrelated factors – commitment, control, and challenge. Through cognitiveappraisal, a hardy person perceives potentially stressful situations as meaningful andinteresting (commitment), sees stressors as changeable (control), and views change as anormal part of life and an opportunity for personal growth instead of a threat(challenge).

Law et al. (n.d.) found hardiness to be inversely related to job exhaustion – anestablished antecedent of turnover – in a sample of public accountants. Further, thecommitment component of hardiness was the most significant component in the studyrelative to job exhaustion. The results of this study and those of Dinius andMcIntyre (1979), along with the unique commitment component within personalityhardiness, suggest that hardiness may be inversely related to turnover in publicaccounting.

H2. Hardiness is inversely related to turnover intentions of public accountants.

MethodologyThe foregoing hypotheses were tested using ordinary-least-squares (OLS) regression.For the number and type (i.e. interaction term) of predictors and sample size in thecurrent study, OLS is the most appropriate regression method in yielding unbiasedregression parameters (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).

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SampleAn appropriate sample of public accountants was acquired from two multi-officeregional firms and from a single office of a large international firm. All of the subjectswere based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the project was approvedby the relative institutional review board for the study of human subjects.

A representative from each of the firms requested that the self-report researchinstruments be mailed in bulk to them. Participation was not randomised as all firmsagreed to a predetermined limit of participants, and the representatives distributed thesurveys independent of the researcher. The representative from the smaller regional firm,however, indicated that, firm wide, most of the public accountant employees did receive asurvey. Respondents were assured that their participation was voluntary and thatresponses would remain totally anonymous. Pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes wereincluded for the convenience of both subject and researcher. A high proportion of all theresponses was received during a short time window of approximately two weeks.

Much of the data were collected during an unprecedented period in the history of theprofession. During this time, public accounting scandals (e.g. Enron/Arthur Andersen)rocked the nation and, consequently, the profession was under close scrutiny andexperiencing change and upheaval relative to attestation services (Foxnews, 2002;Herhold, 2002; Sunspot, 2002). These circumstances most likely affected data collection.

Just after the busy season in 2002, 112 questionnaires were distributed to publicaccountants of a small, local regional firm, and 75 were returned for a response rate of67 percent, indicating a good response rate for survey data (Babbie, 1990). At the sametime, from the international firm, 16 questionnaires were returned from 50 distributedfor a response rate of 32 percent. This lower response rate was expected due tocomplications stemming from the legal problems associated with the timing of datacollection. Specifically, the international firm was in the process of purchasing asignificant portion of another firm and indicated that this would limit the availabilityof time and/or individuals to participate. This purchase was unexpected.

Another large regional firm provided subjects for the study; however, these wereacquired more than a year later during November and December. Of the 90 surveysdistributed, 40 were returned for a response rate of 44 percent. The overall responserate of 52 percent is adequate and suggests that non-response bias is not a concern(Babbie, 1990).

Of the 131 returned, a careful scrutiny of the data indicated that three respondentsfrom one of the regional firms failed to reply to significant blocks of items renderingthese unusable for use in hypotheses testing. As such, these were removed leaving afinal testable sample consisting of 128 public accountants (72 and 40 from the tworegional firms and 16 from the international firm). This sample size is adequate forstatistical testing (Kleinbaum et al., 1988).

Demographically, the sample was almost evenly split between men and women(48 and 52 percent respectively), and 83 percent of the respondents were married; theaverage age of the sample was 35. Although each firm uses a different ranking scheme,analyses revealed that 43 percent of the sample were from the staff and senior ranks,while only 6 percent were partners. The rest (approximately half) were supervisors andmanagers. All available sectors of public accounting (auditing, tax, consulting) wererepresented, but most professionals indicated specializing in tax and audit with taxbeing the dominant of these.

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MeasuresAffective commitment and continuance commitment were measured by widely usedand accepted scales developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) and modified by Meyer et al.(1993). Allen and Meyer’s (1996) review of studies employing their scale reports thatboth exploratory and factor analyses validate that these two types of commitmentrepresent separate factors and have been stable over time. Seven-point Likert scaleswith statements gauging the two factors of organizational commitment are anchoredwith endpoints of “strongly agree” and “strongly disagree.” In the current study,reliability estimates were high for both affective and continuance commitment(Cronbach’s a: 0.91 and 0.85, respectively) (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).

A scale modified from Kobasa’s (1979) measure was employed to assess hardiness(Bartone et al., 1989). All three closely related dispositional tendencies of hardiness(commitment, challenge, and control) are measured using a scale consisting of 30 items.Respondents were asked to describe themselves using a four-point scale withendpoints of “not at all true” and “completely true.” The modified scale demonstratedadequate internal reliability (Cronbach’s a: 0.75) (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).

Despite the temptation to separately examine each hardiness component as its ownconstruct, independent treatment of the three factors of hardiness risks obscuring what isapparently a complex, nonreducible phenomenon (Maddi et al., 1987). Indeed, mostauthors have increasingly treated hardiness as unitary (Funk, 1992), and researchersargue that hardiness components may be studied separately only when the strength oftheir relationships to an outcome variable exceed the strength of the relationship betweenoverall hardiness and the outcome variable (Carver, 1989; Funk, 1992). Consistent with thisapproach, the construct in the current study was treated as a unitary construct.

To measure turnover intention, public accountants were asked to indicate how longthey would like to remain with their firm by choosing from five possible responses: notmore than 1 year, 1-3 more years, 4-6 more years, 7-10 more years, until I retire.

ResultsMean and standard deviations for the independent model variables are presented inTable I, and Table II presents a correlation matrix of all relevant model variables.

Affective organizational commitment and hardiness are inversely correlated withintent to turnover; continuance commitment is not correlated to intent to turnover. Thisfollows Stallworth (2003) in that affective commitment appears to be the dominantcomponent of organizational commitment in public accountants. Among independentvariables, hardiness is positively correlated with affective organizational commitmentand inversely correlated with continuance organizational commitment. This inverserelationship between continuance commitment and personality hardiness is somewhatsurprising and may suggest that an accountant with low levels of hardiness may feel“stuck” in working for the firm due to perceived financial and personal sunk costs.

Variable Mean SD

Affective organizational commitment (AOC) (1-7) 4.40 1.34Continuance organizational commitment (COC) (1-7) 3.93 1.23Hardiness (HAR) (1-4) 3.00 0.23

Notes: n ¼ 128; the independent variables are the range of responses

Table I.Descriptive statistics forindependent variables

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Table III presents regression statistics for the hypothesized model. Overall the model issignificant and demonstrates quality in terms of goodness-of-fit (Maths, 2003). To testeach hypothesis, each variable of interest in the model must be examined individually,holding all other variables constant. Center-score regression was utilized to correct forpotential multi-collinearity due to the interaction term in the model (Aiken and West,1991; Chass, 2003; Seamonkey, 2003). Variance inflation factors (VIFs) indicated thatmulti-collinearity was not a concern (Neter et al., 1996).

H1a. asserts an inverse relationship between affective commitment and intent toturnover in public accountants. This hypothesis is strongly supported. Thismirrors results found in other studies using accountants (Stallworth, 2003;Ketchand and Strawser, 1998) and establishes the saliency of the constructrelative to turnover in accountants.

H1b. predicts an inverse relationship between continuance commitment and intentto turnover. This hypothesis is not supported. Recall that Kalbers andFogarty (1995) found this relationship in their study, but they also found norelationship between affective commitment and intent to turnover. Overall, anexamination of the results of the current study in the context of the resultsfound in the other accounting and non-accounting studies suggests thataffective commitment appears to be more salient in predicting intent toturnover than continuance commitment.

INT AOC COC HAR

INT 1.00AOC 20.66 (,0.0001) 1.00COC 0.03 (0.7348) 20.11 (0.2184) 1.00HAR 20.37 (,0.0001) 0.30 (0.0006) 20.28 (0.0012) 1.00

Notes: n ¼ 128; INT is Intent to turnover; AOC is Affective organizational commitment; COC isContinuance organizational commitment; HAR is Hardiness

Table II.Correlations ( p-values)

among model variables

Predictor Coefficient Std. error t-statistic p-value VIF

Intercept 6.79129 1.39821 4.86 ,0.0001 0AOC 20.68428 0.07903 28.66 ,0.0001 1.12289COC 20.10055 0.08364 21.20 0.2316 1.10027HAR 21.38219 0.46546 22.97 0.0036 1.19770AOC*COC 0.13109 0.06255 2.10 0.0382 1.01912

Analysis of varianceSource DF SS MS F-statistic p-valueModel 4 145.247 36.312 29.51 ,0.0001Error 121 148.912 1.231Total 125 294.159

Notes: INT ¼ 20:68AOC 2 0:10COC 2 1:38HAR þ 0:13AOC*COC (INT is Intent to turnover, AOCis Affective organizational commitment, COC is Continuance organizational commitment, and HAR isHardiness); R 2 ¼ 49:38 percent R 2 ðadjustedÞ ¼ 47:70 percent

Table III.Regression statistics of

hypothesized model

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H1c. posits an interactive effect of affective and continuance commitment inpredicting turnover intentions in public accountants. This hypothesis followsthe results of Somers (1995) where this interaction was found to be significantin a sample of nurses. Similar to that study, H1c is supported here in a sampleof public accountants. The reason for this interaction is yet unclear; however,similar to Somers’ (1995) assertion, a high level of continuance commitmentmay help a public accountant rationalize an emotional, affective attachment toan organization.

In H2, hardiness, a personality trait with ties to commitment, was expected to beinversely related to intent to turnover. The regression results strongly support thishypothesis. A hardy public accountant appears to be committed, in control, and up tothe challenge in facing the rigors of the profession and remaining with the firm.

Limitations and implicationsAs with all experiments utilizing survey data, the potential for common-method biasrelative to self-report measures is always present (Spector, 1987). Further, the studyutilized a small sample, although the number of respondents was more than adequateto test the hypotheses; sample bias was also mitigated by adequate response rates.Another possible limitation is generalizability of the results to the profession at large;three accounting firms with offices in the Northwest area of the United Statesparticipated in the study.

This study contributes to the accounting research literature by improving upon andadding to a model predicting turnover in public accountants. Prior commitment studiesin the profession reported mixed results as to the relative importance of affective andcontinuance commitment in predicting turnover. The current study solidifies theassertion that affective commitment by itself is more salient than continuancecommitment in its effect on turnover intentions. However, the study adds anotherdimension to the model by demonstrating that continuance commitment plays a role inturnover, but only as it interacts with affective commitment.

As already discussed, this interaction may be due to the self-justification hypothesiswhere high-perceived sunk costs enable accountants to develop an emotionalattachment to a firm. Other reasons for the interaction may involve firm demographics.Gender, age, marital status, and firm rank were each included separately in thehypothesized model to explore the individual effects of these variables on the model’sparameters. Gender and age were not significant and added essentially nothing to themodel; the results remained the same. Interestingly, however, marital status and rankindividually affected the interaction parameter when added individually to the model.

Not surprisingly, rank was inversely and marginally significant ðp ¼ 0:09Þ inpredicting intent to turnover. Of interest, the status of being married was inverselyrelated to turnover intent ðp ¼ 0:02Þ: Even more interesting, both rank and maritalstatus appeared to nullify the significance of the interaction of continuance andaffective commitment on intent to turnover ( p ¼ 0:11 and p ¼ 0:14, respectively).Apparently, marital status and rank are individually salient to intent to turnover, andtheir presence in a turnover model renders any effect of continuance commitment anon-issue.

A further addition to the public accounting turnover model is the personalityvariable of hardiness. The results of this study suggest that this trait may be important

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to an individual in building a long and successful career in the profession. Specifically,the results support the notion that the trait’s components of commitment, control, andchallenge are key to assisting public accountants adapt to and even embrace theunique work culture and environment found in public accounting.

From a practical standpoint, a better theoretical model of turnover may provebeneficial to firm management in its recruiting and retention efforts. By understandingthat affective commitment is most important in retention, management can focus onfirm strategy that will effectively attach individuals to the firm. This emotionalattachment should result in less turnover with its attendant high costs. Further, inaddition to utilizing important selection criteria such as academic performance, workexperience, and interpersonal skills, recruiters may be able to assess a candidate’s levelof hardiness as an additional measure of compatibility.

Additional studies in this area should focus on improving the model by examiningthe effects of both environmental and personal antecedents of turnover in publicaccounting. For example, role stressors, mentoring culture, organizational justice, andworkload could be added to a model including commitment and hardiness to help builda more inclusive model and see the relative effects of these variables on publicaccounting turnover. Further, intermediate, yet related, outcomes such as job burnoutor job stress could be included in the model to better establish causality amongvariables.

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