A Case Study of CPA Firm Organization Behavior

Article/Bian Wenmin，Hebei Tianqin Certified Public Accountants Firm

1 Introduction

Wenmin has been working at a Certified Public Accountants Firm for about 20 years.The firm has established in 1997.At the begining of firm,only have eight staff including five shareholders.They all worked with great responsibility, diligence,and won the praise from their customers. The business scope expanded quickly and widely.The staff increased from 8 to 170 with 80 certified public accountants,28 certified assets appraisers as well as 33 certified tax agents in 2006.but in 2006,one third of the certified public accountants leave the firm as well as the assistant auditors. There are different reasons.The loss of staff led to job vacancies, the work chain was broken, which seriously affected the work efficiency and the quality of the work.In the process of the implementing audit, there were much problems such as job slack, which directly affect the audit quality and the reliability of the audit report. Complaints from customers increased also. This situation has attracted great attention of chief accountants who are top management of the CPA firm.

2 Details of the problem and the aspects should be addressing to seek resolution

On initial stage of the CPA firm, they focused on small number of customers, they did collective work together, they are intimacy between employees. Any problem can get the most rapid and obvious concern, including potential problem. With the growth of the company, the departments were also expanded, the number of projects increased rapidly, the communication between people concentrated in the department. During that time, one department is a small fringe group, there is a small group of ideas within the firm, when the goal of the small group is inconsistent with the objectives of the firm, resulting in the project team to leave the firm.

The loss of talents gave a heavy hit to the top leaders and shareholders.They investigate from the remaining staffs and interviewed with the former manager. They tried to find the reasons for their leave. Their feed-backs were the relative low salaries for their intensity works. They always work for 12-14 hours a day ,for the purpose to make a program well done, they always do selftraining after work. But,according to firm’s salary system, they thought their pay did not match their efforts. For another reason ,they wanted to get more opportunity to make a better career development.

When talking to the audit assistants, some reflected that they have been working in the CPA firm for several years(most of them for 2-3years),they have known the basic business skill, they hope to get more deeper level of knowledge, they hope to update knowledge and reserve new skills but little training chance available .Some said they are not satisfied with some program managers or other top managers. Because they are so centralized, only let the audit assistants do what he ordered to do, never explain why he need the data,Sometimes they misunderstood the managers’ order, Despite of duplicating efforts always happened ,they always suffered public blame even on the face of customers. they want to a harmonious atmosphere. The others said they were in low salary and they felt never really at home.

With a series of problems brought about as the CPA firm expanded .She recognized the organizational culture construction, the reforms of salary system,training plan as well as improve communication and leading style of some managers were more and more urgent and necessary.

3 Stimulate analysis on the OB approaches to the problem

From the case as it can be seen that the start-up period model which relied on the entrepreneurial spirit of the participants has been unable to adapt to the new situation of the CPA firm. After the development of the company,the management problem has become increasingly prominent. If using the organization behavior approaches, there are three problem which we can find:Job commitment, Job satisfaction and job involvement, which directly affect turnover intentions.

1.Low organization commitment for the managers as well as audit assistants.

2.Low job satisfaction for the relatively low salary compared to their heavy work and less training opportunities and harmonious working atmosphere

3.Job involvement: Less trust from managers make employees feel low degree of self-worth,they could not actively put into work, even job slack often happens.

4 Propose solutions and outcomes based on OB concepts

With the development of the firm, the firm culture is particularly important, which is the soft power of the sustainable development of the firm,Because the organization culture is benefit for the staff form a sense of cultural identity, which is called organization commitment. Organization culture provide common values, ethics and code of conduct for employees, and enhance the sense of identity, trust and sense of belonging, enhance employee cohesion, enthusiasm .Slack work, declining audit quality, high resignation rate all these phenomenon indicate the Employees low organization commitment.Brierley, John A have studied the relationship between the organization commitment (OC) and organizational turnover intentions (ORGTO)using a questionnaire in a sample of chartered accountants in Great Britain.Anastasios Zopiatis found effective and normative organizational commitment,have positive associations with job satisfaction and negative associations with turnover. On the other hand, it is necessary to take effective measures to improve employee’ job satisfaction. Two important reforms the CPA has carried out after investigating from the former managers and employees as well as the current staff. One is salary reform. The original salary system is salaries and bonuses directly linked with the post coefficient. Post coefficient is related to working years. In other words, how much salary depends on the level of the post, do not have a direct relationship with how much work the employee has done. This salary system is lack of fairness and competitiveness, which is one of the reasons for the loss of employees. Before making the new salary system, the CPA firm collected recommendations and opinions from all levels of staff, and give timely attention to employees feedback, the new salary system is welcomed by all the staff. A portion of its equity and dividends are taken out to encourage good employees. High salary and effective motivation is very effective to the staff satisfaction. The other reform is training system. the firm provide more learning opportunities and promotion channels, the employees now have a stronger motivation to improve the quality of their work and themselves. All these measures greatly enhance job satisfaction of employees. showed high levels of job satisfaction are associated with strong attachment to and reluctance to leave the occupation even in the face of economic hardship. Robbins et al.,(2014) found that the fact that with their satisfactory team, employees always have higher loyalty and responsibility,

Furthermore, how to promote Job involvement of employee’s is another point of concern of management . The management of the firm encourage all the staff to bravely express their ideas and opinions if there are difference. Internal trust is important, effectively motivate employees. More promotion opportunities are given to employees so that they can participate in the internal management of the firm. Harmonious atmosphere, full of trust and respect, gradually formed. The staff actively put into work, and drive the development of the organization. top leaders, managers and audit assistants have done smooth communication. (Wallace, 2017) said clear communication throughout an organization helps to efficiently organize labor and tasks to eliminate wasted effort and time.(Volmer,Spurk and Niessen, 2012) claimed that high quality of supervisor employee relationships fosters creativity at work.

5 Conclusion

From the case we can see organization commitment ,job satisfaction, job involvement Impact organizational performance.Organizational culture help to improve the staff's sense of identity. Material incentives as salary and promotion mechanism, the harmonious atmosphere in the organization without hierarchy,good learning atmosphere and other spiritual incentives, to a large extent,enhance the enthusiasm of employees, thereby improve work efficiency and reduce turnover rate,make the firm expanded in a healthy direction.

[1]Crosson, 2014,S. Crosson.Anticipating exit from North Carolina's commercial fisheries.Soc. Nat. Resour., 28 (2014).

[2]Wallace (2017). OB-Communication and Networking.[online]Slideshare.net. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/jonrwallace/obcommunication-and-networking [Accessed 3 May 2017].