Voice and the Tax Practitioner: The Rhetoric and the Reality of Employee Voice Mechanisms in Big 4 Accounting Firms

Although recent years have seen an exponential rise in academic interest in the concept of
employee voice, tax is a sector which thus far has been largely overlooked. This is symptomatic
of the wider neglect within voice research of employees in accounting firms and other
professional workplace settings, settings which have been consistently found to have high
levels of employee turnover. Drawing on Industrial Relations voice research, this study
addresses this lacuna by exploring for the first time the voice mechanisms available to tax
practitioners working for Big 4 accounting firms. Uniquely, the findings are based on
interviews with staff at all hierarchical levels from juniors to partners. The findings reveal
largely homogenous approaches across the firms to employee voice, with direct and largely
formal employee voice mechanisms employed. These mechanisms, however, are subject to a
significant degree of managerial control. With little employee appetite for collective voice, this
study concludes that the partners across the Big 4 are free to shape and ultimately prescribe
employee voice in tax unimpeded, and in the pursuance of continued commercial success.