The study helps clarify the debate over the importance of organizational codes of conduct on ethical conduct (Stevens, 1994). The organizational code of conduct, the formal defining of an organization's work activities, is examined as a component of the formalization variable. Formalization is hypothesized to have a mixed effect on role stress. The study also examines the relationship between tax practicioners' role stress (i.e., role ambiguity and role conflict) and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is multi-faceted with implications for trax practitioners' satisfaction with pay, promotions, supervisors, co-workers, and the work itself. As hypothesized, role stress negatively affects job satisfaction. Tax firms may want to reduce role ambiguity by better clarifying tax practicioners' roles. However, clarifying tax practitioners' roles may increase the level of role conflict experienced by the tax practioner. By having a clear definition of the tax practitioner;s role, the various constituent's agendas may appear more at odds with minimizing the role ambiguity portion of role stress may increase the role conflict portion. See FIGURE 1 for a conceptual model that maps out the relationships that are being tested.