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Use your interpersonal and communication skills as a financial professional to work successfully with clients Embark on a journey to further develop your career when you read People-Centric Skills: Interpersonal and Communication Skills for Financial Professionals, 2 nd Edition. Business leaders consider employee communication skills and critical thinking abilities as essential elements for success. In their work, all professionals must communicate clearly and rely on their interpersonal skills to be successful. This second edition of People-Centric Skills shares the fictional story of Dalton Zimmer, executive coach and public speaker. Dalton, all the while juggling his business, kids and social life, provides coaching and communication strategies for handling challenging situations faced by his clients. This insightful narrative will help you expand communication and soft skills as a CPA, auditor, financial planner or other financial professional. As Generation Z is entering the work force, the communication gap between Z and Boomers or Generation X is widening significantly. New to the second edition, you'll find a discussion of communication between generations and how to bridge them as a financial professional. You can be a more people-centric leader as you engage with a wide range of clients and associates. This book can be a first step to improving interpersonal and communication skills as you continue to develop in your career.

Purpose>This study aims to review the auditor-client relationship (ACR) literature spanning 1976 to 2019 to provide future research directions.Design/methodology/approach>The study analysed 140 articles from the Web of Science database, authored by 259 scholars across 28 countries and published in 47 journals. It identified three major research streams to understand the ACR dynamics: auditor tenure, ACR attributes and auditor-client negotiation.Findings>Three major findings emerged based on this review. First, few studies examine auditor-client negotiation relative to other streams; thus, it offers scope for further research. Second, given that various fields have used diverse frameworks as theoretical underpinnings in prior studies, continuing this trend can better portray ACR from multiple perspectives. Finally, despite strong international regulations on ACR aspects such as auditor independence, tenure and rotation, implementation in several countries warrants special considerations, specifically on legal enforcement and investor protection, given diverse cultures and country-level institutional environments.Originality/value>This study contributes to the synthesis of existing and emerging research streams and provides future research suggestions.

This book can be a first step to improving interpersonal and communication skills as you continue to develop in your career. --

This study provides both survey and experimental evidence to consider how social interactions between staff-level auditors and client management may affect staff auditors' perceptions and influence their decisions regarding the collection of audit evidence. During fieldwork, staff-level auditors have extensive interaction with client management. Survey evidence suggests that these staff-level auditors are often \"mismatched\" with client management, in terms of their experience, age, and accounting knowledge. Experimental results indicate that staff-level auditors may reduce the extent to which they collect evidence to avoid these interactions. Finally, the use of email communication with client management helped to mitigate the reduction in evidence collected caused by avoiding in-person interactions. Interestingly, when not collecting all the evidence, approximately half of the participants documented their findings in a vague or inappropriate manner, which would likely reduce the likelihood that reviewing auditors would identify a problem. Given the extent of audit evidence collected by young staff auditors, these findings have direct implications for workpaper and audit quality.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how competence trust (i.e. trust regarding the ability of the counterpart) and goodwill trust (i.e. trust regarding the benevolence and integrity of the counterpart) affect the probability that the auditor or the client stand up to the respective negotiation partner’s position in situations of disagreement in the auditing relationship.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments were conducted, one with 149 auditors and one with 116 chief financial officers (CFOs). Both auditors and CFOs had to indicate the likelihood that they stand up to the other party’s preferred position in a disagreement on the materiality of unrecorded liabilities. The data derived from these experiments were analyzed using hierarchical OLS.FindingsThe results indicate that both auditors and CFOs who take their respective negotiation partner in the audit for highly competent are less likely to stand up to them in situations of disagreement. Interestingly, goodwill trust appears to be irrelevant for the negotiation outcome.Practical implicationsThe findings are highly relevant for regulators, because they inform about the crucial importance of competence trust for the auditing negotiation outcome and thus put the so-called “trust-threat” into perspective.Originality/valueThe study adds to the literature on the role of the context for auditor-client negotiations by exploring the role of two distinct forms of trust on the outcome of these negotiations.

Controversies concerning the main drivers of the auditor-client relationship have been discussed over time, although interest in this topic appears to have slightly declined, with recent studies mainly addressing auditors’ competencies, independence, audit fees and quality of audit services. However, the current business environment shows significant concerns on the high level of economic uncertainty, and complexity of business models, even though auditors have shown interest in adopting emerging technologies. Within this VUCA-BANI framework, auditors are pushed to reconsider the implications of those transformations into their own capabilities, in order to provide adequate solutions to their customers. Instead, the auditor-client relationship does not relate only to discussion on the area of enhancing clients’ or auditors’ dynamic capabilities to become more resilient, and to ensure competitive audit fees, but also to a continuous communication process that influences the outcome of each assurance engagement, many times depending on a negotiation process aimed to limit auditors’ liability and increase clients’ satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the main drivers influencing financial auditors’ choice for different negotiation strategies used during reconciliation meetings with clients. The research is based on a survey disseminated through active financial auditors from Romania. Following a robust theoretical framework, including the client-auditor negotiation dynamic theory, the research design consists of multivariate data analysis. This paper adds insights into the literature, on a topic that is mainly discussed in research settings consisting of highly developed economies, neglecting the specifics of emerging economies. The study aims to provide insights on drivers of auditors’ choice for negotiation strategies and related tactics in the stage of meetings of reconciliation with clients. Research results indicate that the auditors’ position of negotiation is significantly influenced by client pressure and the quality of the auditor-client relationship.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is gaining more insight into the impact of the strength of the auditor–client relationship on the client’s perceptions about added-value of the auditor service including the role of auditor tenure. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on both archival data (auditor tenure) and interview data (strength of the auditor–client relationship and client’s perceptions on added-value). The data comprise 497 small- and medium-sized entity (SME) audit engagements in The Netherlands. Findings This study finds evidence of a positive relationship between the strength of the auditor–client relationship and client’s perceptions on added-value. The data do not suggest a main effect of auditor tenure on client’s perceptions on added-value. This study finds evidence that auditor tenure, combined with the strength of the auditor–client relationship, has a strong positive influence on the perceived added-value. Therefore, this study argues that a longer tenure turns out to positively influence the auditor’s client-specific knowledge. The findings are relevant to auditing research by extending the scope of application of social exchange theory (SET) to SME settings, and by suggesting that the auditor–client relationship may capture more an audit quality dimension than auditor tenure. Findings are also relevant for audit practitioners in showing the contribution of a strong auditor–client relationship to client satisfaction in terms of perceived added-value. Standard setters may consider the results of this study in proper designing a specific auditing standard for smaller, less complex entities. Originality/value This study fits into a development in auditing research where auditing is viewed as a service. Prior studies in this area were mainly build on marketing concepts (e.g. Grönroos 2007). This study uses a sociological lens, particularly building on SET. In particular, this study focuses on the impact of relationship quality on perceived added value. Using this perspective sheds light on the importance of interactions between auditors and their clients. Both the product (audit opinion) and the process of collecting sufficient appropriate audit evidence in interaction with the client are important. This relationship perspective may serve as an explanation to why long auditor tenure can turn out to improve audit quality. Future research may build on this sociological perspective and particularly examine what conditions need to be present to realize benefits of the relationship approach and when a more transactional approach is more suitable.

Business Professionals, to be Truly Effective and Advance in their Careers, Must Master their People-Centric Skills. People-Centric Skills: Interpersonal and Communication Skills for Auditors and Business Professionals is a comprehensive guide to the \"\"soft skills\"\" that make technical professionals more effective. People-Centric Skills aim to improve all aspects of personal interactions, relationship development, and communication. These skills are as essential to success as are technical capabilities. This is the story of a leading internal audit department taking that next step to becoming