Gender Differences in the Cultural Values of Multinational Audit Firms: Australian Evidence

Abstract

This study was motivated by the fact that there are few female audit partners in the large multinational audit firms operating in
Australia. The purpose of this research is to examine whether male and female auditors attach different importance to values instilled by the
organisational culture of multinational audit firms in Australia. Gender differences in organisational cultural values may affect women achieving
senior managerial levels in audit firms. Little research has investigated the relationship between gender and organisation culture. One hundred
and thirty auditors participated in this study. A factor analysis followed by discriminant analysis measured gender differences in the
organisation cultural values of multinational accounting firms. The discriminant analysis tested hypotheses that male and female auditors
attach differing levels of importance on organisational cultural dimensions of multinational audit firms did. The results indicate that female
auditors place more value on feminine characteristics such as ‘respect for people’ dimension and ‘team orientation’ than male auditors did. On
the other hand, male auditors valued masculine characteristics such as ‘action orientation’ and ‘outcome orientation’ more than female auditors
did.