Contemporary thoughts on knowledge sharing and more

Welcome to TAPS, the Accounting Podcast series. I'm Elby Brooks and working with me is Abir Traur. Today our guest is Caitlyn Hauserbroek. Caitlyn is an Associate Professor in Accounting at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, having completed her PhD at KU La Ven in Belgium. Being published her research in a number of top tier journals, Caitlyn's work is focused in particular around the issue of knowledge sharing in organisations, as well as the issue of culture controls in audit firms. Caitlyn coordinates and teaches managerial accounting and information management courses, and supervises thesis students. We were fortunate to have Caitlyn recently visit here at Melbourne as part of her sabbatical. Let's find out more. Welcome to TAPS, Caitlyn. Thanks a lot, Elby. So let's go back a little, Caitlyn. How did you come to embark on a career in academia? Well, so it's not like it was my childhood dream to become an academic. I started to get interested in research during my bachelor's when I first encountered research papers. But I wasn't sure it was something for me. So after my bachelor's, I decided to do an internship at the university. It was just four weeks, but I wanted to get a real taste of academic life. And during the internship, they had me write a literature review. Admittedly, that's not the most exciting part of doing research. But what else can you really do in just a month, right? So after that, they offered me a PhD spot. And initially, I said no. So I turned it down. But about six months later, I revisited the decision and I reached out to see if the opportunity was still there. And here I am 12 years later. Excellent. Yes, I agree with you. We don't all set offers with our childhood dream of finding ourselves in the industry. That's for sure. Your research covers such areas such as knowledge sharing and incentive design, trust and culture controls. So how did you come to develop an interest in these particular areas? So I'm really drawn to the human elements within an organization like decision making processes, motivational factors, organizational behavior. Why do people choose to work where they do? What drives their decisions and actions on the job? Is it mostly money? Or are there also other factors at play? So it's really the psychological aspects behind the choices that fascinate me. And I think there are also aspects that everyone can relate to, just like everyone can relate to knowledge sharing, the challenges and the necessity of it. Even from day one on any type of job, figuring out literally everything, practical stuff from where to find the coffee to how the printer works, to what you really need to know to do your job well and who to ask what and that sort of thing. So these everyday interactions and the challenges that come with it drew me into focusing on this research area. It's just such an interesting field, I think. And I think that concentration on the human element is so important for us in this sort of broader area of accounting. I'd like to focus on one of your key co-authored publications in accounting organizations and society titled Building Trusts Through Knowledge Sharing Implications for Incentive System Design. Co-authored with Alexandra and Michael. How did this work come about and what were the key motivations for it? I was already working on knowledge sharing as a broad research team when I started this project. And in the earlier work, I was looking at motivational mechanisms, how to motivate people to share knowledge. Now, there is actually already a lot of existing research on cooperative behavior more generally, both inside and outside the organization. And you could argue that knowledge sharing is just another form of cooperative behavior, right? So I faced some skepticism with this early project, like, don't we already know enough about this? Do we really need new research on this? Can we just apply what we already know on cooperative behavior to knowledge sharing? But so me and my co-authors, we believe that knowledge sharing really had unique aspects that made it different from other types of cooperative behavior. So this project really actually aimed to prove that. So we wanted to prove that knowledge sharing is different. And that would then also justify more research into how to motivate the specific type of cooperative behavior. And how did you conduct the study? So what did you actually do? We conducted two types of experiments. And one was the sort of classic laboratory experiment. And these types of experiments are usually quite abstract. And ours wasn't any different from that. So we created a puzzle solving task with participants in the role of helpers and helpies. And the idea was that the helper had the opportunity to help the helpee. And then that would be financially costly for the helper, but that would benefit the helpee. So we tried to mimic real-world situations where if you help someone, you incur a cost-somehow time, effort, whatever, but it benefits someone else. And then in this task, we manipulated whether or not help involved sharing knowledge on the puzzle solutions and whether the helpee could reward the helper in return. We also ran a range of scenario-based experiments. And these are more context-rich. So in there, we asked participants to imagine that they were seasoned employees deciding whether or not to help a new employee on the job. We asked that, did or did not involve knowledge sharing. And then we see how that changed their helping behavior. And what sort of key results emerged out of those two experiments? So we found that experienced employees can be really hesitant to share knowledge, but that it also has the potential to build trust when it is shared. So how does it really work? People believe that if they acquire knowledge through their experience, through their time, through their efforts, that it becomes an important part of their identity. So because of this, they also believe that sharing knowledge is costly to them because it's like giving up a part of yourself, right? And they're unlikely to do that when they're only motivated by altruism. Now, as I mentioned, it has a potential to build trust. How does that work? If you share your knowledge, you actually share a part of your identity with someone else. So you also believe then in that way that you will form a strong bond, sort of a connection with the person you shared your knowledge with. And that also makes you believe that if there is an opportunity in the future for this other person to reciprocate, to reward you for your help, they will do that because you have such a strong connection through the shared knowledge. And that prospects, if there is an opportunity to be rewarded, then that makes employees more inclined to help by sharing knowledge. So the practical implications of this, in other words, what advice would you have for organisations, and you sort of just touched on this, have for organisations seeking to enhance knowledge sharing within the organisation. As a result of this work, what advice would you offer? So I would advise organisations to really sort of leverage this trust effect via the design of their incentive system. So, rewarding knowledge sharing or incentives in advising is it's not so straightforward, right? Because in theory, you could say, okay, write an incentive contract that directly pays for shared knowledge. But in practice, that is super difficult. How should you write a contract that tells, okay, this is the type of knowledge you shared, and if you shared it, that's the type of bonus you get. So the problem is that employees have a lot of knowledge accumulated through their experience. But as a manager, you don't really know what your employees know. Also, you don't really know what exactly it is that needs to be shared in order for other employees to be helpful, right? So creating sort of a contract that formalises all that is impossible. The good news is, though, that through our research, which shows it's not really necessary to do it in that way, you can keep it a bit more open, and you can use more so-called subjective future incentives, exposed incentives. So rather than beforehand stating, okay, in a contract, this is what you need to share, and then you get a pay raise or whatever, you use these so-called subjective rewards. And there the idea is more like, you might get a bonus at the end of the year, but it depends on how you perform. So there's really no guarantee that you will get a bonus, you just have to trust that at some point you will be rewarded in the future. But that relates to what I told earlier, right? With knowledge sharing, this trust aspect works really well. If people share knowledge, they have this trust that they will be rewarded in return. So what we also saw in our experiments is that it's really crucial that peers are involved in these subjective rewards. So they need to be able to say, okay, this employee helped me well, so he deserves or she deserves a reward. If instead, you know, it's a manager overseeing knowledge sharing, as a knowledge sharing, you're not sharing with the manager. So you don't have this trust idea there. So it's really important that the one you share the knowledge with is involved in the reward, let's say. So in some, I would advise an organization to use subjective rewards, where also the peer evaluations are taken into account. Excellent. There's certainly a difficulty associated with trying to use objective measures for, you know, the conduct of knowledge sharing. So the idea of the introduction or increase use of subjective based evaluations is really quite interesting. And we see this emerging in a couple of other areas of our sort of management accounting and control landscape as well, which is really quite interesting. So this is great work. So what do you think that we, is there work we still need to do in this knowledge sharing space that might improve, you know, outcomes for organizations? I'm aware you've got some forthcoming publication relating to telecommuting, for example, which sort of moves a little bit into this space as well. So what do you think we still need to know and investigate about this thing we call knowledge sharing? Yeah, so I think there are two important areas that need further investigation. And the first is maybe the role of modern technology. And second, as you said, like the role of remote work or telecommuting. So when it comes to modern technology, we have AI, social media platforms within companies, and they all offer sort of new avenues for knowledge dissemination for the way which we share knowledge, but they also present challenges, I think. So I just explained this whole story about trust and how important that is in knowledge sharing. How would that work when you share knowledge with an AI system, for example. So I think there's a lot more to do there. And then second, indeed, working remotely, understanding how home office settings influence knowledge sharing, formal, informal knowledge sharing, and how that actually helps to maintain productivity, but also like learning, innovation, creativity, where knowledge sharing is really important. I think that can be a really interesting area to explore further. Yeah, so well, there's still more to be done then in the area, which is which is neat. Also understand you've got a current paper that investigates issues around escalation of commitment and the rather interesting concept of narcissism. Tell us a little bit about that work. Yeah, so that's an early stage project with a former master thesis student of mine, Saskia Spine. And we're exploring there how narcissistic personalities can influence decision making and particularly the tendency to escalate commitment to failing projects. So and our preliminary findings suggest that it is narcissism significantly increases this propensity to escalate commitment. That's quite concerning because, first of all, there's research that shows that narcissism in general in society is on the rise, but then also that narcissistic personality is really a presence among top executives and managers more than in the general population. And it's especially these people that are often involved in these very high stick decision making, where escalation of commitment can be particularly harmful. So we are now investigating strategies that organizations could use to mitigate this risk. Yeah, fascinating topic, I think around both of those issues, the escalation of commitment, which seems we don't seem to be at this point at least able to stop. And to look at the connecting that to the issue of narcissism is really, really quite interesting. So you've had a lot on your plate. So what is it? What is it you're currently working on? Yeah, well, you introduce it also in the in the beginning of it that I that I work on culture in audit firms. So that that's also an ongoing project of mine, where I'm really excited about. So it's with three co-authors Jasmine Ball is a black partner and Mark pitcher pitcher. And we study how the culture in audit firms can influence audit quality. So we first did over 30 interviews with partners, managers, juniors of several other firms. And then we set up a large survey and an experiment. And it's not always easy to get access to auditors for such things. They're very busy people, right? But we got help from the Foundation for auditing research, which is a Dutch organization that tries to build a bridge between research and audit practice. So we got a lot of cool data. And what it looks like is that in order to build a culture for all the quality, all the quality, there are four things that really matter. So first, firm leadership needs to say the right things. So they clearly need to express the values of the firm, the fact that the firm stands for all the quality in this case. Second, they need to show this behavior themselves. So they need to walk the talk basically. And then third, they also need to support employees in the firm to embody these values, like make the necessary budgets available and that sort of thing. And then finally, they need to select the right people in the firm. So people that have a drive for getting to the bottom of things, for example. And it's really a combination of all these four things that matter. Like if you only say what you stand for, but you do not follow it up with actions yourself or with providing the means, then it can really backfire. And some of these aspects matter more in early stages than in late stages. So for example, selecting the right people really matters for juniors, obviously. So it's a combination and at different points in time that you should work on your culture. Excellent. So just moving away from the research thing for a moment. And as part of your teaching, what advice do you have for current undergraduate accounting students or majors in terms of maximizing outcomes from their undergraduate studies and preparing for this contemporary workforce? So my advice would be to actively seek opportunities beyond the classroom. If you're interested in a specific firm or a specific career path, I would say don't hesitate to reach out to people working there directly. So you can explore internship opportunities or shadowing opportunities or even just informally talk to people. And I think that can really open doors and provide clarity also for yourself on your career direction. And I do believe that it's important to be proactive there and maybe even a bit bold. Because I always think like what's the worst thing that can happen, right? You can receive a no, okay, like no, there is no opportunity for an internship or whatever. But then the potential gains from taking the initiative can be substantial for your career, I think. So that would be my advice. Yeah. Do you think it's an off the cuff question? So do you think it's an exciting time to be an accounting graduate? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot happening. And I think there is also this misconception that as an accountant, maybe we won't be necessary anymore because AI will take over our role. But I absolutely don't believe that's true. I think our role is changing. It's really more about interpreting and managing and that sort of thing and not just calculating or whatever. But I do think it's a really exciting time. And I also think there is a shortage at the moment of good accountants, right? In a firm, I think for the first time, a while back, a lack of good accountants was sort of mentioned as a risk in financial statements of a firm. So they explicitly mentioned we might have trouble hiring good accountants and that would be a risk if we don't manage to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent advice. Excellent advice. Well, thanks so much, Caitlin, for joining us here at TAPS. I know that you're currently on a nice extended sabbatical program. So we hope that that works out really to be really productive for you. Quite a bit of this time is being spent in Australia. So we hope that you're enjoying that. It's been a lot of fun to have you as part of our TAPS podcast program and we wish you well in your current and future endeavors. Thank you. Thank you so much, Elvie. It's been great so far visiting Australia.