Well-being in open space offices: The role of office features and psychosocial working conditions

BACKGROUND: There has been a trend to implement open space offices: wide-spread office floors with modern and colourful furniture. However, there is limited scientific knowledge on the effects of Open Space Offices (OSO). Studies are scare and show heterogeneous results. OBJECTIVE: By using the Job Demands-Resources model as a conceptual framework, the present study aimed at investigating the influence of subjective and objective features of the OSO (i.e., office size, desk-sharing, openness) next to classical psychosocial working conditions (i.e., demands, resources) on irritation and subjective well-being. METHODS: Cross-sectional and longitudinal data out of four different organisations (490 participants, 43.73 years of age, SD = 12.02) were used. RESULTS: Results showed that both features of the OSO and working conditions play a role in well-being at work. In line with current studies, job demands and resources contributed more to irritation and subjective well-being than features of the OSO. CONCLUSION: The influence of traditional psychosocial working conditions has so far been neglected in research on OSOs. However, their contribution to employees’ well-being next to features of the OSO could explain the heterogeneous findings of the existing research on well-being in OSOs. Thus, when implementing OSOs, employees’ well-being can only be enhanced if working conditions are targeted in parallel.

Capital Market Consequences of Audit Office Size: Evidence from Stock Price Crash Risk

SUMMARY This study examines the association between the office size of engagement auditors and their clients' future stock price crash risk, a consequence of managerial bad news hoarding. Using a sample of U.S. public firms with Big 4 auditors, we find robust evidence that local audit office size is significantly and negatively related to future stock price crash risk. The evidence is consistent with the view that large audit offices effectively detect and deter bad news hoarding activities in comparison with their smaller counterparts. We further explore two possible explanations for these findings, the Auditor Incentive Channel and the Auditor Competency Channel. Our empirical tests offer support for both channels. JEL Classifications: G12; G34; M49.

Auditors and Disclosure Quality: The Case of Major Customer Disclosures

SUMMARY Little is known about the relationship between disclosure quality and auditor quality. We measure disclosure quality as the likelihood of a firm fully disclosing the identity of their major customers in the Form 10-K filing. We also measure voluntary disclosure by exempt smaller reporting companies (SRCs) disclosing, and all firms disclosing the identity in the audited notes, or affirming no major customers. We expect that firms are more likely to disclose when they engage higher-quality auditors who have specialized knowledge of 10-K regulations. We hand-collect a sample of more than 26,000 (34,000) major customer disclosures that we use for our main tests (voluntary disclosure tests). We find that firms are more likely to mandatorily disclose their major customers' identity when audited by either an office- or national-level specialist whose clientele consists largely of firms with major customers. We corroborate these results with other higher-quality auditor measures: Big N, second tier, and office size. We also show that SRCs are more likely to voluntarily disclose when they engage a higher-quality auditor. We provide further evidence of an association between voluntary disclosure and a higher-quality auditor by ranking disclosure quality on audited disclosure, nonaudited disclosure, and no disclosure. JEL Classifications: M42; M41; D23. Data Availability: All data are available from public sources identified in the text.

Does Geography Matter?

This study investigates the role of geography in shaping the average bank office size in Illinois banking. “Geography” here refers to a host of socioeconomic, demographic, and local community characteristics at the bank market level. The study finds that larger bank markets, higher levels of market concentration, higher percentages of whites within the total population, and less physical fragmentation within a geographical bank market contribute to larger average bank office sizes. The use of technology, represented by higher percentages of physical capital and premises in the total assets, is found to reduce the bank office size. This tendency is further reinforced by a lack of economies of scale at the bank office level. At the same time, the study finds that the greater adoption of internet banking is associated with larger bank offices. These findings provide indirect evidence that market structure has an impact on the adoption of alternative banking technologies. A study of bank office size has practical implications in providing insights into the future branch strategy, as well as the inadequate nature of measures of market power currently used in antitrust regulation.

Office-Level Characteristics of the Big 4 and Audit Report Timeliness

SUMMARY: Recent changes in the audit and financial reporting environment have resulted in longer audit report lags and have increased the importance of identifying factors associated with a timely audit. We examine timeliness implications of office-specific attributes of the audit firm. Specifically, we examine whether office-specific industry expertise, office size, and the importance of the client to the local office are associated with audit delay (i.e., the time between fiscal year-end and the audit report date). We explore the sensitivity of our results to various measures and consider the impact of earnings quality. We examine two types of industry expertise and whether the aforementioned audit firm attributes are associated with a propensity to issue an early earnings announcement. We find that office-specific industry expertise is negatively associated with audit delay (for all but the largest quartile of firm offices) while office size and client importance are both positively associated with audit delay; however, the most important clients are associated with a more timely audit. Office-specific industry expertise is positively associated with the propensity to announce earnings substantially early and such expertise garnered via a product-specialist strategy is positively associated with audit delay relative to a low-cost specialist strategy. Our study provides further support for the importance of office-specific characteristics on audit and financial reporting outcomes and provides evidence of the benefit of office-specific industry expertise.

Does Geography Matter?

This study investigates the role of geography in shaping the average bank office size in Illinois banking. “Geography” here refers to a host of socioeconomic, demographic, and local community characteristics at the bank market level. The study finds that larger bank markets, higher levels of market concentration, higher percentages of whites within the total population, and less physical fragmentation within a geographical bank market contribute to larger average bank office sizes. The use of technology, represented by higher percentages of physical capital and premises in the total assets, is found to reduce the bank office size. This tendency is further reinforced by a lack of economies of scale at the bank office level. At the same time, the study finds that the greater adoption of internet banking is associated with larger bank offices. These findings provide indirect evidence that market structure has an impact on the adoption of alternative banking technologies. A study of bank office size has practical implications in providing insights into the future branch strategy, as well as the inadequate nature of measures of market power currently used in antitrust regulation.