“Trying to Get Out from under Water”: Paradox and Power in the Audit Senior Associate Role
研究美国审计高级助理如何应对工作中相互矛盾的目标，发现他们通过暂时回避或动态应对悖论来管理压力，并强调资源（时间、信息、社会资本）对赋能的重要性，对审计质量与人才培养有启示。
ABSTRACT Audit senior associates are essential to audit production, yet we know little about how they experience their organizational role. We interview 45 U.S.-based audit seniors and find they experience persistent paradoxical tensions between contradictory yet interrelated objectives, stemming from their middle hierarchical position as both experienced associates and novice executives. Applying Paradox Theory, we find seniors sometimes work around paradox by attending to one paradoxical objective to temporarily alleviate tension but leave the other paradoxical objective neglected. Other times, seniors work through paradox by dynamically engaging with both paradoxical objectives, particularly when empowered by perceiving adequate resources—time, information, and social capital. Our study reconceptualizes seniors as self-directed fledgling leaders whose capabilities are forged through navigating paradoxical tensions, expanding the conventional academic view of seniors as experienced associates. We discuss how audit firm-level tensions revealed through seniors’ experiences offer insights for human capital development and audit quality.