The effect of diversity and the mediating role of elaboration on multidisciplinary greenhouse gas assurance team effectiveness

Abstract

© 2019, American Accounting Association. All rights reserved. Greenhouse gas (GHG) assurance is increasingly used by companies as a means to increase stakeholder confidence in the quality of externally reported carbon emissions. The multidisciplinary nature of these engagements means that assurance is performed primarily by multidisciplinary teams. Prior research suggests the effectiveness of such teams could be affected by team composition and team processes. We employ a retrospective field study to examine the impact of educational diversity and team member elaboration on multidisciplinary GHG assurance team effectiveness. Results show that team processes such as sufficiency of elaboration on different team member perspectives significantly increases the perceived effectiveness of the teams. While educational diversity is not found to directly improve perceived team effectiveness, it is found to have a positive effect through increasing perceived sufficiency of elaboration. These findings have important implications for standard setters and audit firms undertaking GHG assurance engagements.