A Word of Caution to Students: Public Accountant Perceptions of Alternative Work Arrangements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret E. Knight ◽  
Regina M. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Public Accounting ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
The Past ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
Perceived Costs ◽  
Public Accountant

This study provides updated insights regarding attitudes and beliefs about alternative work arrangements (AWAs) in public accounting so that educators are equipped with current empirical analysis to advise students on how to successfully navigate work-life balance in public accounting. We examine current attitudes and beliefs about AWAs by surveying public accountants from firms of various sizes on different dimensions of AWA support and asking firm partners to provide advice for students.  Respondents indicated more agreement with the benefits of AWAs than they did with the perceived costs to the organization and the perceived costs to the participants’ future career.  Collectively, results suggest attitudes regarding AWAs may be more positive than in the past.  Results identify significant differences in the perceptions about AWAs between females and males, as well as AWA participants and non-participants.  Qualitative results are consistent with general support for AWAs but also provide cautionary advice to students.

scholarly journals Alternative Work Arrangements

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 631-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Mas ◽  
Amanda Pallais
Keyword(s):  
Working Hours ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
The Past ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Home Work ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
The Impact

Alternative work arrangements, defined both by working conditions and by workers’ relationship to their employers, are heterogeneous and common in the United States. This article reviews the literature on workers’ preferences over these arrangements, inputs to firms’ decisions to offer them, and the impact of regulation. It also highlights several descriptive facts: The typical worker is in a job where almost none of the tasks can be performed from home, work arrangements have been relatively stable over the past 20 years, work conditions vary substantially with education, and jobs with schedule or location flexibility are less family friendly on average. This last fact explains why women are not more likely to have schedule or location flexibility and seem to largely reduce their working hours to get more family-friendly arrangements.

Measuring Accounting Professionals' Attitudes Regarding Alternative Work Arrangements

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric N. Johnson ◽  
D. Jordan Lowe ◽  
Philip M. J. Reckers
Keyword(s):  
Principal Components ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Accounting Professionals ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Components Analysis ◽  
Alternative Work

ABSTRACT Drawing on the work-life balance and organizational justice literatures, we developed a 20-item scale of individual attitudes and beliefs regarding alternative work arrangements (AWAs) in public accounting. We administered the scale to 412 highly experienced accounting professionals (primarily managers) from two Big 4 firms and two large national firms. Principal components analysis of scale responses yielded three identifiable dimensions regarding AWA attitudes and beliefs: (1) ideals and benefits of AWAs, (2) costs and inequities related to AWAs at the office level (organization-level or procedural justice issues), and (3) costs and inequities related to individuals' use of AWAs (person-level or distributive justice issues). Scale responses were significantly influenced by gender and AWA participation. In addition, the principal components were related in a predictable pattern to hypothetical performance evaluation judgments related to AWA use. Implications of these findings for the accounting profession and future research are discussed. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from the authors upon request.

scholarly journals Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance of Workers of a Manpower Agency in a Highly Urbanized City

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
Lyka R. Lagrana ◽  
Ma. Johanna Ann R. Bayoneta
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Contractual Arrangements ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
Overall Job Satisfaction

  The rapid growth of industrialization and diversification worldwide diverted the trend in the labor market to be shifted towards alternative work arrangements, also known as Non-standard Employment (NSE). In the Philippines, these alternative forms of employment of NSE can be greatly observed. Workers can be under different employment types, namely, regular, probationary, fixed-term or contractual, casual, project, or seasonal. The majority of workers under NSE arrangements fall under a fixed-term or are contractual employees. This enticed the researcher to investigate how alternative work arrangements influence or affect workers' overall job satisfaction and work-life balance, specifically for workers under contractual arrangements or those hired by service contractors or manpower agencies. Thus, the study described and correlated the level of job satisfaction and work-life balance of the manpower agency workers in a highly urbanized city in Negros Occidental.

An Examination of Alternative Work Arrangements in Private Accounting Practice

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly E. Frank ◽  
D. Jordan Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Work Culture ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Job Commitment ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Current Task ◽  
Integrate Work ◽  
Alternative Work

Employees are requesting more flexibility in their work schedules to be able to integrate work with other aspects of their family and personal lives. While alternative work arrangements are being offered at progressively more companies, it is unclear whether the work culture accepts these arrangements as a viable work alternative. Here we examine the extent to which flextime and telecommuting arrangements impact management accountants' performance evaluations, job commitment, and career progression as compared to working a traditional schedule. We also examine whether these arrangements are perceived as being less acceptable for men than for women. One-hundred sixty management accountants from 90 companies participated in our experiment. The results indicate that participation in alternative work arrangements did not impact perceptions of current task performance or job commitment. However, participation led to significantly lower perceptions of long-term career potential.

scholarly journals Distrust And Dominance In Managing Alternative Work Arrangements: A Micro-Analytic Test Of Transaction Cost Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry R. Adler ◽  
Gabriel D. Isaacs ◽  
Robert L. Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Transaction Cost Theory ◽  
Sustainable Competitive Advantage ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
The Relationship

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 34.2pt 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Organizations that successfully outsource may see better value-creation in creating a sustainable competitive advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The objectives of this study were threefold:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>a) provide a framework for studying the effects of perceived distrust that leads to dominance, b) analyze how opportunism parlays into the concept of dominance, and c) determine if the relationship between outsource partners varies by analyzing transaction characteristics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Our research shows that firms should take caution to fully understand the effects that contract size has on a firm&rsquo;s resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span></p>

scholarly journals Solo Self-Employment and Alternative Work Arrangements: A Cross-Country Perspective on the Changing Composition of Jobs

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tito Boeri ◽  
Giulia Giupponi ◽  
Alan B. Krueger ◽  
Stephen Machin
Keyword(s):  
Social Insurance ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Minimum Wage Legislation ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
Dependent Employment ◽  
The Uk

The nature of self-employment is changing in most OECD countries. Solo self-employment is increasing relative to self-employment with dependent employees, often being associated with the development of gig economy work and alternative work arrangements. We still know little about this changing composition of jobs. Drawing on ad-hoc surveys run in the UK, US, and Italy, we document that solo self-employment is substantively different from self-employment with employees, being an intermediate status between employment and unemployment, and for some, becoming a new frontier of underemployment. Its spread originates a strong demand for social insurance which rarely meets an adequate supply given the informational asymmetries of these jobs. Enforcing minimum wage legislation on these jobs and reconsidering the preferential tax treatment offered to self-employment could discourage abuse of these positions to hide de facto dependent employment jobs. Improved measures of labor slack should be developed to acknowledge that, over and above unemployment, some of the solo self-employment and alternative work arrangements present in today’s labor market are placing downward pressure on wages.

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