Investigating the effect of work pressure and auditor characteristics on the increase of auditor stress in the period of overwork compared to underwork

Auditing is one of the most stressful jobs due to the high volume of work and time pressure on auditors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of work pressure and personal characteristics of the auditor on increasing the auditor's stress in the period of overwork compared to underemployment. This research is a cross-sectional-analytical research of prospective research in the field of correlational research. Also, because the results of this study can be used in the decision-making process, this study is applied in terms of purpose. The companies have been audited financially. The procedure is that the cortisol test is performed in two stages. The first test is performed in January and February, which represents the months of low work of auditors. The second experiment is performed in June and July, which represents the busy months of auditors. The collected data were analyzed using multivariate regression model. Findings show that increasing age and experience have the opposite effect on increasing auditor stress and auditing experience has a more negative effect on increasing auditor stress than auditor age. And work pressure in the busy period compared to the low working period has a positive effect on the auditor's stress.