In this section, we will report, analyse and discuss the results of the interviews by first introducing the answer to research question 1 (i.- e., What is audit stress?) that identify two forms of team stress, namely, interteam stress and intrateam stress. We then address research questions 2 and 3 by following how the audit teams told their story, and so we answer the research questions in the same way that they emerged. Firstly, the audit teams talked about triggers and consequences of interteam stress, and secondly, the audit teams talked about the triggers and consequences of intrateam stress.9 Therefore, the answers to research questions 2 and 3 also help to elaborate on the first research question.
The interviews revealed that audit team stress can be defined as stress that is experienced by all team members during the specific team engagement (interteam stress) and also stress that is experienced by an individual during an audit team engagement (intrateam stress) that can influence other team members. Therefore, audit team stress can be explained by the team stress framework of Dietz et al. (2012), which contains these two dimensions of team stress: interteam and intrateam stress. We discuss this definition of audit team stress with examples of what audit team stress is from the participants responses in more detail below.
As we listened to the participants of this study, we began to hear about how the teams experienced stress, what triggered this stress and what the consequences can be because of the stress experienced. Team stress was described by many participants in comparison with less stressful team experiences, which suggested that the team stress experience was consider something specific to the team in that time and context (Dietz et al., 2012) and not something that typically occur on all team engagements. This result indicates that the unique features of each of the team engagements impact the likelihood of audit team stress occurring.
It became apparent that the stressful experiences were sometimes described as stress that all team members had experienced, which is defined as interteam stress (Dietz et al., 2012). For example, when talking about team stress due to changes in the team, one participant pointed out that ‘Everyone is always quite sour about this’ (SA T1) and another pointed out ‘it is clear that it [team stress] affects the team’ (AIC T2), while Team 5 reflected on their shared team stress experience where all team members felt some stress but to different degrees (See Table 1 for definitions of team members' rank);
Some [team members] just show it for a short period, but I haven't seen anyone be too stressed for a long time. Some [team members] took time off for sickness. (AIC T5)
We don't really talk about how we feel about stress. I suppose you can see if people are stressed or not. (AM T5)
The Team 5's experience of team stress suggests that the whole team can feel stress from the same engagement experience, but they may
have different levels of stress and some have felt too stressed for a short period enough to take time of work. When team members take sick leave, they also leave work to be done by the team, increasing the stress on other team members, at least for short periods of time. Not communicating about how the team feels about stress, when every team member recognises that it has occurred, leaves the team at a disadvantage because they are not supporting each other in techniques to overcome different stressors.
On other occasions, the participants described their own individual experience of stress that derived from the team engagement experience, which has been identified as intrateam stress (Dietz et al., 2012). For example, when talking about team stress, one participant pointed out ‘There are stress periods, so we know that it is coming and I can get stressed because I know it is coming’ (AM T8) and another participant said
The time budget is not something that I am stressed about, but when I have finished and not understood what we have been working on. Then I feel a little stressed. (AM T7)
Interteam stress is therefore experienced by the whole team because of the experience the team has had while working together on the engagement, while intrateam stress might only be experienced by an individual team member but due to the team experience. Intrateam stress is not a type of stress that has grown from a personal experience from outside the team.
Example of interteam stress that emerged in the interviews was when the team members reflected on how all experienced stress because of factors of the audit process that were specifically different in the team engagement compared with less stressful team experiences. The team's specific experience of unclear planning, a lack of communication and cooperation and a lack of motivation and unwanted surprises were triggers that caused all the team members to feel stress.
Therefore, two different types of team stress have been evident in audit team engagements, interteam stress or intrateam stress. This evidence that answers RQ 1 What is team stress? has overall provided support for Dietz et al. (2012). However, the members in these audit teams indicate some differences from prior research including (1) that lack of motivation as a trigger of team stress can cross both interteam and intrateam stress dimensions and (2) that affective stress triggers and consequences can be experienced at an interteam level. These findings will be elaborated on in the following sections.
The audit plan was commonly cited as a trigger of team stress. For example, when asked about team stress, one participant said ‘if there is bad planning and everything is difficult to achieve, then it can be hard. It is then you need to work really hard, too hard’ (SA2 T1), and one participant explained:
It all depends on how well the planning has been done so you know where the hours should be placed. If you haven't done that at the beginning, you can get run-down and end up working hours on parts you don't need to do. You can also experience that when you get more and more stress you begin to concentrate on what is most important. (SA3 T1)
This is an example of a team stress experience, where planning for the team process included planning for team inputs at the end of the previous team cycle in order to account for developments for the next team cycle of inputs (a change in team composition) and so that this team process cycle would improve the previous ‘messy’ experience. This team agreed with each other that planning for this audit engagement gave them all an experience of stress, stating, ‘[It was stressful] when there was something that was unclear from the start’ (SA3 T1). Similarly, the tax specialist pointed out, ‘The hardest part is when you are on the first year of an engagement and no one knows about the client. That is the most important year because we need to organize who can do what in the best way possible’ (TS T1). Therefore, planning can be considered as a trigger of stress between audit team members, since the stress occurs because of a team experience and has also been experienced by the whole team. Moreover, the audit manager of this team, Team 1, pointed out:
A lot can depend on the beginning that we have planned and put together the right team from the start. It is not about the time budget. (AM T1)
This response challenges the research of, for example, Margheim et al. (2005) and also deepens our understanding about the issue of time pressure and stress in audit work. The clarity of planning the audit is a vital element to consider in order to reduce the teams' stress and not lead to the consequence that the team feels like the work is ‘too hard’. According to Dietz et al. (2012) and Drach-Zahavy and Freund's (2007) definition of team stress, when the experience originates from a shared team, stimulus that occurred within the team between team members reflects what is called interteam stress. The perception that work is too hard or difficult (as a consequence of team stress) has been found to influence behavioural intentions in the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 2011; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Trafimow et al., 2002). It would therefore be beneficial for future research to investigate if there is a connection between audit team stress, perceived difficulty of tasks and the teams' behavioural outcomes.
Several teams pointed out that planning and clarity were stress triggers at some point in their team experience. One team pointed out, ‘It is a challenge to have everything connect and fit’ (AIC T8) and another member said:
Each year you try to plan the tasks better … but when you get a new engagement it can become more stressful because everything is unknown. This is something that we work on to plan things more efficiently so that the more important engagements get the time they need and still get other engagements done. Improve the leadership so we know what we are doing. (AM T8)
This evidence suggests that planning and clarity could curb stressful team experiences by improved planning leadership and clarity of the key audit matters needed to be addressed in the audit. Audit planning involves essential decision making about the risks of the audit including potential errors and irregularities (Houston et al., 1999), which seems likely to influence the level of stress the team may experience. According to Pickett et al. (2006), audit planning can have several risk factors to focus on during many stages, including plans made at different times of the audit cycle. Therefore, team stress created by audit planning could be influenced by several risk factors at different times of the audit team experience.
Some participants have pointed out that team stress from this planning experience needs to be managed appropriately right from the beginning of the planning experience. Audit Team 1 pointed out that it was hard to contact the auditor in charge (AIC) and that the lack of accessibility to their AIC was something they had to deal with on their own. When we probed them about this response, they pointed out that we would be lucky to get an interview with their AIC because the AIC is not easily accessible. The response from Team 1 also suggested to us that the team had experienced a stress level due to the actions of team members and the new engagement tasks that had to be planned, which indicated that stress was shared between the participating team members right from the start during the planning stage of the audit. In comparison with Team 1's ‘messy’ experience, Team 2's well-functioning experience was explained by the AM who commented on why it went well: ‘the plans need to be clear when the audit is complicated’.
Zaccaro et al. (1995) found that team stress deriving from time urgency reduces decision-making performances but that the planning of team task cohesion can mitigate this effect. Since it is known in audit literature that auditors have reported stressful time pressures and linked such pressures to audit-quality-threatening behaviour (Liyanarachchi & McNamara, 2007; Otley & Pierce, 1996; Pierce & Sweeney, 2004; Svanberg & Öhman, 2013), our evidence adds to this literature by suggesting that clear audit plans could decrease interteam stress and perhaps even time pressures.
The team stress experience of a lack of clarity may be an example of a shared team role-ambiguity stress since team role-ambiguity stress occurs when team members are not clear about their roles, their tasks or the team's goals (Savelsbergh et al., 2012). The audit Team 1 experience revealed that clarity had been a problem in a previous audit year but that a team effort to improve the clarity of planning and roles had decreased the teams' stress.
Communication and cooperation were acknowledged as triggers to team stress that could also influence audit quality. For example, while discussing how they experienced team stress, one participant said that when ‘communication in the team is lacking, and there is the wrong thing [in the client's evidence] or nothing is said [about a risk], it can be a threat’ (AIC T4). Meanwhile, the team manager defended their communication timing by saying, ‘I made contact with [the AIC] at the end of each step and when I have contacted the client’ (AM T4). This team experience when information is perceived to be held back can be a risk to all audit team members' work and the audit quality, which can be identified as an interteam stressor between team members (Dietz et al., 2012; Drach-Zahavy & Freund, 2007; Savelsbergh et al., 2012). Therefore, instead of regarding communication as a positive, challenging experience (Downey & Bedard, 2019), insufficient timing of communication may be a negative trigger to interteam stress.
Another example described by a participant, who said that the team was stressed when they ‘had asked the wrong questions and then needed to contact the client again, which can lead to more work’ (AIC T8). Asking the ‘wrong’ questions, which creates stress, is an example of a cognitive deficiency that can influence the quality of the judgements and decisions that teams make of the client's evidence. This example shows that client responses to the questions asked may be judged as insufficient by a team member, leading to stress for the team. It also suggests that the team needs to understand what questions to ask and perhaps how the questions should be asked, which could be confirmed during planning sessions with the whole team. Thus, it indicates that insufficient communication skills can be a trigger to team stress and the consequences of this team stress experience can negatively influence audit quality, because of lower-quality judgements and decisions made by insufficient communication. This result supports evidence that shows that ineffective communication can influence the auditor's affective emotions during the audit review process (Andiola et al., 2019).
Due to a lack of communication between team members, an audit manager explained that they experienced team stress ‘When I was an associate (role) and I needed to communicate well with the audit manager to understand what needs to be done and what does not need to be done’ (AM T3). The AIC explained, ‘There can be occasions where the team does not cooperate so well or function so well’ (AIC T3). This team explained that they had experienced stress together during the early training stages of their relationship, which requires wellfunctioning, cooperative communication. Alderman and Deitrick (1982) also point out that communication is paramount to aiding audit teams' awareness of the importance and relevance of audit steps, so that audit teams do not skip important audit steps because they regard them as unnecessary. Skipping steps deemed unnecessary is a risk to the audit, since it could lead to errors in the audit and is therefore a decision that is considered a threat to audit quality.
A tax specialist said that when the cooperation ‘went really well’ and they could communicate—that is, ‘we were all good at discussing the tasks and exchanging information’ (TS T2)—team stress did not hinder the work. Another team member added:
The partner and I know each other very well, we have worked together a lot before and we have a good communication. It does not matter that [the AIC] is in a different office in a different town … we had something about the EU rules or something acute come up and it is very important that we have good communication in the team. (AM T2)
Therefore, good cooperation and communication during the audit process can decrease team stress even when team members may not be situated in the same place and urgency in audit matters occurs. In team stress research, Ellis (2006) conducted an experiment and found that teams that cooperatively divide labour and communicate knowledge will influence the relationship between team stress and team outcomes. Thus, an audit teams' experience of less communication and cooperation can influence their outcomes by increasing audit team stress that can lead to errors and decisions that reduce audit quality.
Evidence of team stress in the audit teams was made clear when team changes were discussed. A participant explained, for example:
We have had people who hit the wall10 and couldn't do this work, so it can affect the work because when one person leaves the team, there is more work to be done by everyone else on the team. So, it is clear that it affects the team members and their work. (AIC T2)
Also, one team that had changed its team members completely explained that ‘Those that we have at this office are absolutely stressed if they need to change out of an ongoing engagement and take part in another when necessary’ (AM T1). Coordinating such a large change in team composition was described as difficult because those who were the first choices to deal with the engagement were too busy. When audit teams experience these changes, they also need to coordinate the multiple tasks they are responsible for and interdependent on. Audit Team 5 also experienced changes as a shared team stressor:
The last few years we have had a lot of auditors that have taken their pension so the division of work has been higher for the number of certified auditors … they [the client] have changed things and that is why we had a lot to do this year. (AIC T5)
This team explained that their team experienced stress due to changes at the office and for the client so that the team had to change members and the tasks they normally do. The choice to change the team was explained as follows: ‘We can take someone else into the team if necessary, although this is not the optimal choice because the person who comes in might not know exactly what to do’ (AM T5). Hence, audit team changes are not preferred because they lead to team stress, in that team members are required to take on tasks and roles that are less familiar. This Team 5 experience suggested that they would rather experience team stress that is triggered by changes that derive externally to the team, that is, from the client, than team stress that is triggered by changes within the team. Therefore, this indicates that team changes may be a trigger to team stress that is harder to cope with than changes that derive externally from the team.
However, when discussing stress and workloads, one team explained that they coped with the stress by changing team members when ‘one person turned out to have too much work one month and another too little … then we had some things that needed to be changed to balance out the work’ (AM T6). Therefore, stress was experienced between team members and this team found that team member changes actually helped to decrease their team stress experience.
Audit teams can change members after an engagement year, or during planning for the new audit-cycle, and also during the engagement process, depending on its requirements and the nature of the engagement. The audit teams discussed that when team members change teams, the members' roles can also change, such as from being an audit manager to being an associate, from being a senior associate to being a junior associate or even from being an AIC to being an audit manager and vice versa.
Changes in team members that alter the role of the team members can be identified as a team role-conflict stress (Peterson & Smith, 1995; Savelsbergh et al., 2012) because the stress is triggered by the shared team experience and the type of stress experienced conflicts with their expected roles and their attitudes towards them. Maruping et al. (2015) found that internal leadership that can manage the task execution within the team influences team stress and team outcomes. Therefore, an audit team's internal leadership in the form of senior support can have an important and indirect influence on audit team outcomes in terms of how well team role-conflict stress is managed. Also, Sacramento et al. (2013) found that the focus on team promotion, defined as a team's shared orientation towards promotion-related goals and strategies, also influences team stress and team outcomes. Therefore, there is evidence that indicates that if audit teams develop leadership skills with a shared team promotion goal, rather than an individual promotion goal, team role-conflict stress should decrease.
