The Accountant as an Advisor: The Role of Trust in the Use of Advice for Various Types of Services

Abstract

External accountants are evolving from their traditional compliance roles towards becoming comprehensive business advisors. While previous research has focused on SMEs' demand for advice, our exploratory study explores the factors influencing the actual use (i.e., implementation) of this advice. This is crucial, as the true impact of advice occurs when it is put into practice (or not). Our research emphasizes the central role of trust, anchored in owner-managers' perceptions of their external accountants' ability, benevolence, and integrity. More specifically, we explore how the importance of these trust factors varies across different types of advisory services, each carrying distinct risks. Based on regression analyses using survey data from 799 Belgian SMEs, the study's empirical findings confirm the importance of ability and benevolence in the use of advice and reveal the context-dependent nature of trust across various service types. Ability is considered more important for legal and strategic services than for financial and operational services. Benevolence is determinative for each category of advisory services, but is considered more important for strategic services than legal services. Integrity does not appear to significantly influence the use of advice for any of the advisory services. The research contributes to the literature by integrating the judge-advisor system framework, offering a fresh perspective on the resource-based view theory, and shedding light on the intricate dynamics of decision-making within advisory services.