Comments on Wolf's" The Nature of Managerial Work" The Case for Unobstrusive Measures Revisited

Abstract

This article comments on the research paper "The Nature of Managerial Work," by Frank M. Wolf. The author says that there is no doubt that the descriptive study of what auditors are indeed doing in their formal work roles is a non-trivial issue. The search for alternatives to self-report directly joins unobtrusive measures to current issues in organizational inquiry. The self-reports represent rather sensitive issues of individual managers' self-concepts and their perceptions of the generalized expectations of others around them about appropriate behaviors for them to display. Critical incidents purporting to capture the nature of auditing work are generated in relation to behaviors that enhance or detract from promotional outcomes in audit firms. The emphasis on promotional decisions in firms could conceivably influence results, and an alternative interpretation of them can be presented which suggests that this indeed may be the case. In setting raters the task of classifying incidents to categories, there is not high levels of consensus in evidence among the judges, which would indicate difficulties in their application.