Organizational cynicism and its relationship with employee’s performance in big four audit firms in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Organizational cynicism has become a growing issue in present organizations. Empirical studies done on the concept of organizational cynicism and employee performance have been mainly carried out in foreign counties, there is dearth of research in this respect in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, a gap can be identified to discover the relationship between organizational cynicism and employee performance of employees in different levels in Sri Lankan audit firms. Hence, examination of organizational cynicism and employee performance of employees in Sri Lankan audit firms was conducted throughout this research study. This research is expected to reveal the relationship of all three types of organizational cynicism (i.e. cognitive cynicism, affective cynicism, and behavioural cynicism) have with employee performance in audit firms in Sri Lanka. The perception of employees in the audit firms in Sri Lanka about their organization and the employment contract and their motivation towards work are further analysed. Primary data are collected through questionnaire from audit trainees, supervisors, managers in big 4 audit firms in Sri Lanka (n = 80) by using a convenient sampling technique. Analysis of data is undertaken quantitative approach and to achieve the research objective, Hierarchal multiple regression models are used by using SPSS to identify the impact of organizational cynicism on employee performance. The study concludes that organizational cynicism has a significant negative relationship with employee performance at audit firms and that each dimension of organizational cynicism (cognitive, affective, and behavioural) individually have significant negative relationship with employee performance. Furthermore, it was revealed that most of the respondents experience a breach of contract by the firm’s management. Thus, causing organizational cynicism and affecting negatively on employee performance. The findings of this study are expected to be particularly useful to audit firm management in effectively managing and retaining the best suited employees for auditing, for the success of the firm.

Keywords: Affective cynicism, Behavioural cynicism, Cognitive cynicism, Employee performance.