The Effects of Future Identity and Utility Value on Auditors’ Complex Task Performance

Theory suggests that auditors who find tasks more personally appealing (i.e., having more task value) have higher critical thinking (i.e., elaboration) and better performance on complex tasks. Auditors commonly anticipate leaving the audit profession in the future; thus, I expect auditors with a salient future outside the audit profession (i.e., future non-auditor identity) will perceive less value from audit tasks than those with a salient future in audit (i.e., future auditor identity). I experimentally examine whether emphasizing audit tasks’ broader usefulness (i.e., utility) for audit and other business careers restores task value, elaboration, and performance in future non-auditors compared to only emphasizing utility for audit careers. Contrary to expectations, auditors with salient future auditor identities and audit utility perceive lower value in audit tasks and have lower elaboration than all other conditions. While auditors with salient future non-auditor identities and/or broad utility elaborate more, the future non-auditor/broad utility condition elaborates in support of client assertions, leading to worse performance than auditors whose elaborations challenge client assertions. My findings suggest future non-auditor identities inspire higher task value and elaboration, which can either improve audit quality or increase reliance on client-supportive information depending on the auditor’s focus.