The influence of team consensus and inclusive climate on junior auditors’ conformity and risk assessment sharing

In hierarchically structured audit teams, it is common for junior auditors to conduct the fieldwork and gather a large part of the audit evidence, making information sharing critical. However, if a team consensus already exists, individual auditors may conform to the team and hesitate to raise potentially important issues they themselves acquired about a client. This study experimentally investigates how the origin of team consensus (i.e., consensus of junior members vs. consensus of senior members) and the type of inclusive climate (i.e., authenticity vs. belongingness) impact junior auditors’ conformity and their comfort with sharing their own risk assessment with the team. Drawing on conformity theory, we hypothesize and find that junior auditors are more likely to conform to a team consensus of senior members, and feel less comfortable with sharing their own risk assessment with the team, particularly when working in an authenticity climate. These effects of conforming more to senior members are mitigated when there is a climate of belongingness.