Time budget pressure, work stress, and professional behaviour: evidence from Vietnam

Audit firms increasingly rely on strict time budgets to control costs and meet reporting deadlines. In competitive and resource-constrained audit markets such as Vietnam, these organisational pressures may be further intensified by fee competition and a relatively young audit workforce. While time budgeting serves as an important coordination and control mechanism, excessive time pressure may generate psychological strain and shape auditors’ professional behaviour. Drawing on occupational stress theory, this study examines how time budget pressure is associated with dysfunctional audit behaviour and perceived audit judgement quality, with particular attention to the role of work stress within a demand–strain–behaviour framework. Using survey data from 309 external auditors employed by independent audit firms in Vietnam, the proposed model is analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that time budget pressure is positively associated with work stress and dysfunctional audit behaviour. Work stress is also positively related to dysfunctional behaviour, which in turn exhibits a statistically significant negative association with perceived audit judgement quality. Mediation analyses suggest that the association between time budget pressure and perceived judgement quality operates through both stress-related and behavioural pathways, consistent with a complementary transmission structure rather than a single direct effect. These findings clarify how organisational time pressure is internalised and translated into professional judgement processes, showing that psychological strain and behavioural adaptation jointly shape perceived judgement outcomes. By examining this mechanism in an emerging audit market characterised by structurally embedded demand–resource imbalance, the study provides contextual evidence on how stress-based transmission processes operate in professional service settings without implying generalisable boundary conditions.