What motivates the accountants' awareness of their impact on corporate reputation?

Abstract

The study probes the mediating effect of affective commitment (AC) on the linkage between job satisfaction (JS) of accountants and their awareness of how their work impacts their corporate's reputation (AICR). We collected primary data from 110 professional accountants from seven metropolitan cities in India. The data was analysed by using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique and checked for robustness through fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) technique. It was observed that AC has a significant and mediating linear effect on the linkage between JS and the accountant's AICR. No quadratic effects were observed. The study makes three distinct contributions. First, it contributes to a unique behavioural understanding of the antecedents influencing the professional accountant's AICR in the context of an emerging markets. Second, it contributes to the methods literature by testing both the linear effects and the quadratic effects and also by undertaking the robustness check of PLS-SEM analysis by fsQCA. Finally, the study uses the theoretical underpinning of the social exchange theory (SET) to build a deeper understanding of the antecedents of AICR.