Auditors are the people who check whether a company's financial statements can be trusted. It's demanding work, and one worry follows them constantly: what if I miss something important? In auditing, that possibility is known as "detection risk”, i.e., the chance that an error or fraud slips through unnoticed.

A new study asked what this worry does to auditors themselves. Kati Pajunen, Jani Saastamoinen, Antti Rautiainen and Sebastian Oelrich surveyed 210 certified auditors in Finland and combined the results with in-depth interviews with experienced auditors.

They found that anxiety about missing something comes in two very different forms. Productive anxiety is the professional alertness that keeps auditors careful and questioning. This is a normal, even useful part of the job, with no effect on whether people stay in the profession. Unproductive anxiety is more personal: a persistent dread about the consequences of failure, legal action or damage to one's reputation. This second kind doesn't push auditors out the door directly. Instead, it quietly erodes their job satisfaction which then may lead to turnovers.

That matters because the profession is already struggling to attract and keep young talent. The findings suggest firms shouldn't try to eliminate worry altogether, but should watch for its personal, corrosive form and offer emotional support and training, especially to younger auditors.

Pajunen, K., Saastamoinen, J., Rautiainen, A., & Oelrich, S. (2025). How does detection-risk-related anxiety affect job retention among auditors? Accounting in Europe. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449480.2025.2573916