Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions

Area of Science:

• Auditing
• Organizational Psychology
• Accounting

Background:

• Professionals, particularly financial auditors, may not effectively learn from errors due to workplace conditions.
• Recent accounting scandals highlight the need to understand error learning in auditing.
• Factors like small error consequences, routine errors, negative emotions, and time pressure can inhibit learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how workplace conditions influence error learning among financial auditors.
• To examine the moderating role of error management climate (EMC) perceptions on the relationship between workplace conditions and error learning.

Main Methods:

• An experiential questionnaire was administered to 141 Dutch auditors from various hierarchical levels.
• Data were collected from two audit firms.

Main Results:

• An open error management climate (EMC) perception mitigates the negative association between negative emotions and time pressure with error learning.
• Contrary to expectations, blame EMC perceptions were found to mitigate the negative relationship between small error consequences and error learning.
• Post-hoc analyses indicated an inverted U-shaped relationship between time pressure and error learning.

Conclusions:

• Organizational interventions should focus on fostering an open error management climate to enhance error learning in audit firms.
• Understanding the nuanced effects of blame EMC and specific workplace conditions is crucial for improving professional development in auditing.