How do mentoring rewards influence experienced auditors?

Abstract

The benefits of mentoring are well documented, and include lower employee turnover, heightened employee success, and higher employee satisfaction. In an effort to acquire these benefits, audit firms are structuring rewards for mentoring. However, we predict that rewarding mentors can prove problematic, leaving needy young auditors without a mentor or perhaps receiving advice that might prove detrimental. We test our expectations in an experiment with 111 Big 4 auditor participants. As expected, we find that in the presence of mentoring rewards, experienced auditors are less willing to mentor the young auditors who likely would benefit the most. We also find that in the presence of mentoring rewards, experienced auditors are more likely to provide advice that might be counterproductive. Yet interestingly, in our study, when rewards are absent, experienced auditors are more willing to mentor and more likely to provide beneficial advice. Our results inform the audit mentoring literature though our focus on mentor behavior, as opposed to protégé behavior. Our results also have implications for audit firms as they consider the structure of mentoring rewards, training on mentoring advice, and the effects of this advice.