Impact of error management culture on knowledge performance in professional service firms

Abstract

Knowledge is the most crucial resource of the 21 st century. For professional service firms (PSFs), knowledge represents the input as well as the output, and thus the fundamental base for performance. As every organization, PSFs have to deal with errors - and how they do that indicates their error culture. Considering the positive potential of errors (e.g., innovation), error management culture is positively related to organizational performance. This longitudinal quantitative study investigates the impact of error management culture on knowledge performance in four waves. The study was conducted in 131 PSFs, i.e. tax accounting offices. As a standard quality management system (QMS) was assumed to moderate the relationship between error management culture and knowledge performance, offices' ISO 9000 certification was assessed. Error management culture correlated positively with knowledge performance at a significant level and predicted knowledge performance one year later. While the ISO 9000 certification correlated positively with knowledge performance, its assumed moderation of the relationship between error management culture and knowledge performance was not consistent. The process-oriented QMS seems to function as facilitator for the more behavior-oriented error management culture. However, the benefit of ISO 9000 certification for tax accounting remains to be proven. Given the impact of error management culture on knowledge performance, PSFs should focus on actively promoting positive attitudes towards errors.