Internal Audit Between Independence and Administrative Support: An Applied Study in the Saudi Government Sector (Published)
This study examines how internal audit units in Saudi government entities balance professional independence and administrative support during the audit reporting process. Using a qualitative multi-case approach, data were collected from thirteen government entities to explore reporting practices, managerial support, and challenges faced by internal audit managers. The findings reveal a clear distinction between fieldwork independence and reporting independence. While most internal audit units maintained reasonable independence during fieldwork, greater managerial pressure emerged during report preparation, including requests to soften or generalize sensitive findings. Administrative support also varied considerably across entities, with practical and consistent support associated with clearer reports and more actionable recommendations. The findings demonstrate that independence and administrative support are interdependent rather than separate conditions of internal audit effectiveness. The study provides practical insights for strengthening reporting independence, managerial cooperation, resources, and the developmental role of internal auditing within Saudi government entities
Keywords: Independence, Internal Audit, Public Sector, Saudi Arabia, administrative support, audit reporting
The Unpredictable Change in Management Accounting From the Contingency Perspective, Internal Audit, and Stewardship Theory: A Case Study in Libyan Company (Published)
The aim and objective of this paper is to present the process of unpredictable change in management accounting in Libyan company. In order to provide an explanation this process, the researchers used the contingency and institutional theories. The researchers concentrated all the efforts on the subsequent directions: the presentation of the scientific context and encouragement of this research and the case study. The researchers presented the state of the method in the process of unpredictable change in the management accounting from national and global point of view. The research also described the development of management accounting in Libyan in the context of economic and political changes. This represents a starting point for a new economic environment and for new management accounting. Consequently, the researchers developed a case study which presented this development. The derivation of our research was that the changes in the management accounting system of the Libyan company analyzed appear in the same time with the institutionalization of some moderate view (e.g. degree of competition, competencies and training in management accounting). The management accounting system (MAS) was modeled by the contingencies specific to this company (e.g. industry, strategy).
Keywords: Contingecy Theory, Environmental Uncertainty, Internal Audit, Management Accountant System, Stewardship Theor
Internal Audit and Corporate Governance Effectiveness in Universities in Rivers State (Published)
The increasing demand for internal auditing and the expanded scope of work of the internal audit function places a lot of responsibilities on the internal auditor. The main objective of this study was to establish the nature of the relationship between internal audit and corporate governance in universities in Rivers State. The survey research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study was made up of all the five universities in Rivers State. Convenience sampling technique was adopted in selecting the respondents that constituted the sample of this study. Data collection was done primarily using structured questionnaire to enable the gathering of sufficient evidence about internal audit and corporate governance practices in the universities surveyed. The reliability index of the data collection instrument was 0.885, obtained using the Cronbach Alpha technique. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics while linear regression and correlation analysis were used in testing the hypotheses. The investigation revealed that a positive linear relationship exists between internal audit and corporate governance in universities in Rivers State and that all the measures of internal audit have significant influence on governing council and audit committee effectiveness but do not have significant influence on external audit effectiveness in universities in Rivers State. The study concluded that the internal unit of the universities surveyed, on the average, perform financial, operational and compliance audits. One of the recommendations made was that management and those charged with governance of universities in Rivers State should make effort to inject more qualified, competent and experienced personnel into the internal audit unit; this can be done through the engagement of professional accountants (or auditors) or career internal auditors and by training and retraining their internal auditors to bring them up-to-speed with recent developments in internal auditing and corporate governance.
Keywords: Compliance audit, Corporate Governance, Financial Audit, Internal Audit, Operational Audit.