Auditor and non-mentor supervisor relationships: Effects of mentoring and organizational justice

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the effects of mentoring and organizational justice on auditors' relationships with their non-mentor supervisors. While having a mentor should cause higher quality protégé auditors and their non-mentor supervisor relationships, organizational justice perceptions should mediate this mentoring association. Thus, having a mentor should see higher procedural justice perceptions, which, in turn, should result in higher quality relationships between protégés and their non-mentor supervisors. Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 95 audit professionals shows that protégés report higher quality auditor-supervisor relationships than do non-protégés; however, having a mentor does not appear to be the determining factor. Findings – Building on a prior study of Siegel et al., the paper finds that auditor attitudes towards the job (job satisfaction) and the firm (job commitment) eliminate the association between mentoring and quality of auditor-supervisor relationships. Procedural justice, but not distributive justice, perceptions also mediate the relationship between job satisfaction and quality of auditor-supervisor relationships. Procedural justice perceptions produce higher quality auditor-supervisor relationships with non-mentor supervisors. Research limitations/implications – Using mediation regression techniques instead of the more stringent path analysis and using self-reported survey data that derives a method variance could affect the generalizability of our results. Future research can correct these limitations. Practical implications – The paper finds that while merely having a mentor need not improve relationships, mentoring programs can still greatly improve auditor-supervisor relationships. Originality/value – The paper includes implications for developing effective mentoring programs for CPA firms.