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Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions

INTRODUCTION: Professionals do not always learn from their errors; rather, the way in which professionals experience errors and their work environment may not foster, but can rather inhibit error learning. In the wake of a series of accounting scandals, including Royal Ahold in Netherlands, Lehman B...

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Autores principales: van Mourik, Oscar, Grohnert, Therese, Gold, Anna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895947/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36743251
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1033470
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author van Mourik, Oscar
Grohnert, Therese
Gold, Anna
author_facet van Mourik, Oscar
Grohnert, Therese
Gold, Anna
author_sort van Mourik, Oscar
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Professionals do not always learn from their errors; rather, the way in which professionals experience errors and their work environment may not foster, but can rather inhibit error learning. In the wake of a series of accounting scandals, including Royal Ahold in Netherlands, Lehman Brothers in the United States, and Wirecard in Germany, within the context of financial auditing, we explore four audit-specific conditions at the workplace that could be negatively associated with learning: small error consequences, routine-type errors, negative emotions, and high time pressure. Then, we examine how perceptions of an open or blame error management climate (EMC) moderate the negative relationship between the four work conditions and learning from errors. METHODS: Using an experiential questionnaire approach, we analyze data provided by 141 Dutch auditors across all hierarchical ranks from two audit firms. RESULTS: Our results show that open EMC perceptions mitigate the negative relationship between negative emotions and error learning, as well as the negative relationship between time pressure and error learning. While we expected that blame EMC perceptions would exacerbate the negative relationship between negative emotions and error learning, we find a mitigating effect of low blame EMC perceptions. Further, and contrary to our expectations, we find that blame EMC perceptions mitigate the negative relationship between small error consequences and error learning, so that overall, more error learning takes place regardless of consequences when participants experience a blame EMC. Post-hoc analyses reveal that there is in fact an inverted- U-shaped relationship between time pressure and error learning. DISCUSSION: We derive several recommendations for future research, and our findings generate specific implications on how (audit) organizations can foster learning from errors.
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spelling pubmed-98959472023-02-04 Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions van Mourik, Oscar Grohnert, Therese Gold, Anna Front Psychol Psychology INTRODUCTION: Professionals do not always learn from their errors; rather, the way in which professionals experience errors and their work environment may not foster, but can rather inhibit error learning. In the wake of a series of accounting scandals, including Royal Ahold in Netherlands, Lehman Brothers in the United States, and Wirecard in Germany, within the context of financial auditing, we explore four audit-specific conditions at the workplace that could be negatively associated with learning: small error consequences, routine-type errors, negative emotions, and high time pressure. Then, we examine how perceptions of an open or blame error management climate (EMC) moderate the negative relationship between the four work conditions and learning from errors. METHODS: Using an experiential questionnaire approach, we analyze data provided by 141 Dutch auditors across all hierarchical ranks from two audit firms. RESULTS: Our results show that open EMC perceptions mitigate the negative relationship between negative emotions and error learning, as well as the negative relationship between time pressure and error learning. While we expected that blame EMC perceptions would exacerbate the negative relationship between negative emotions and error learning, we find a mitigating effect of low blame EMC perceptions. Further, and contrary to our expectations, we find that blame EMC perceptions mitigate the negative relationship between small error consequences and error learning, so that overall, more error learning takes place regardless of consequences when participants experience a blame EMC. Post-hoc analyses reveal that there is in fact an inverted- U-shaped relationship between time pressure and error learning. DISCUSSION: We derive several recommendations for future research, and our findings generate specific implications on how (audit) organizations can foster learning from errors. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9895947/ /pubmed/36743251 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1033470 Text en Copyright © 2023 van Mourik, Grohnert and Gold. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
van Mourik, Oscar
Grohnert, Therese
Gold, Anna
Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title_full Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title_fullStr Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title_full_unstemmed Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title_short Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions
title_sort mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: benefits of error management climate perceptions
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895947/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36743251
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1033470
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