In this episode, we delve into the research by Peter Carey, Brigitte Eierle, and Sven Hartlieb, which examines the relationship between audit staff satisfaction and audit quality in the private client market in Germany. The authors use crowdsourced employee reviews to assess satisfaction and discretionary accruals as a proxy for audit quality. Their findings reveal a significant positive correlation between staff satisfaction and audit quality, especially in non-Big 4 firms, contrasting with the absence of this relationship in publicly listed clients. Additionally, high staff satisfaction appears to mitigate the negative effects of non-audit services and long auditor tenure on audit quality. Tune in to explore how audit input factors influence audit quality in the private client sector.