Ego Depletion and Auditors' Busy Season

Patrick J. Hurley

49 citations0/0 files storedBehavioral Research in Accounting

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Behavioral Health and Interventions Auditing, Earnings Management, Governance Stress and Burnout Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of busy season on auditors through ego depletion theory. Ego depletion theory posits that using self-control depletes a cognitive resource and decreases the ability to exercise self-control on subsequent tasks, which can decrease judgment and decision-making (JDM) quality. Using a within-subjects quasi-experiment, I compare self-control resources at the onset of days within and outside of busy season to determine whether auditors experience a between-day accumulation of depletion. I predict and find that auditors experience an accumulation of ego depletion, and therefore begin workdays within busy season in a depleted state. Starting a workday in a depleted state can exacerbate within-day depletion, as studied in prior research. This research contributes a theoretical mechanism linking busy season to auditors' JDM quality and expands ego depletion theory by predicting and finding initial evidence of an accumulation effect, a more severe form of depletion than studied in prior literature. Data Availability: The data used in this study are available from the author upon request.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 49 citations exist upstream.

References

1983A Global Measure of Perceived Stress 2004High Self‐Control Predicts Good Adjustment, Less Pathology, Better Grades, and Interpersonal Success 1998Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource?2007The Strength Model of Self-Control 1993A Review and an Integration of Research on Job Burnout 2010Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis.2002Yielding to Temptation: Self‐Control Failure, Impulsive Purchasing, and Consumer Behavior 2003Job Burnout

Cited by

2020Examining Climate and Culture in Audit Firms: Insights, Practice Implications, and Future Research Directions 2017Disentangling the Trait and State Components of Professional Skepticism: Specifying a Process for State Scale Development 2021How Has the Change in the Way Auditors Determine the Audit Report Date Changed the Meaning of the Audit Report Date? Implications for Academic Research 2019Ego depletion and auditors’ JDM quality 2024The Role of the Audit Room in Auditor Development: Remote Work Experiences of Junior Auditors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.