Organisational commitment, role tension and affective states in audit firms

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between auditors' organisational commitment, role tension and affective states at work.

The paper is based on a questionnaire survey of 150 Big Four auditors and a two‐step longitudinal design.

The results show that auditors experience both significant positive (such as pride) and negative (such as irritability) workplace affect. Moreover, organisational commitment is correlated with auditors' experiencing more frequent positive affect at work, while role conflict is correlated with experiencing more frequent negative affect.

Affect was not measured in real time, but through self‐reports. Future research could study how and under what conditions auditors experience positive and negative emotions.

This is one of the few studies that has sought to research the affective dimension of audit work.