ABSTRACT
One of the preventive measures to situations akin to world financial crises increasingly
forwarded is effective internal audit function (IAF) (e.g., Imhoff, 2003; Mohamad &
Muhamad Sori, 2011). Internal audit, a component of corporate governance, continues
to evolve due to changes in business strategies and requirements placed on it by
legislators. The roles of internal auditors and audit committees (ACs), the key personnel
in IAFs, are changing to a more value-added approach as business strategies move
towards corporate sustainability and organisational excellence. Suggestions forwarded
to improve the performance or determining the quality of IAF include effective
involvement of ACs in internal audit activities, the employment of competent internal
auditors and determining the impact of internal audit on corporate governance (e.g.,
Mohamad & Muhamad Sori, 2011, Sarens, 2009, Turley & Zaman, 2007). Research on
the quality of internal audit has focussed mainly on the relationships of internal audit
with internal control and ACs (e.g., Fadzil, Haron, & Jantan, 2005; Mat Zain &
Subramaniam, 2007; Turley & Zaman, 2007). However, none has linked the impact of
internal audit performance to corporate governance.
This study provides an agency of value view, explaining the effectiveness of IAF and its
impact on corporate governance. Using a convergent mixed methods approach, the main
findings from survey data collected from corporate members of the Institute of Internal
Auditors Malaysia are compared and integrated with perspectives from chief audit
executives of selected public listed companies interviewed. The factors investigated are
the structure of the IAF, activities of best practices in internal auditing, ACs’
involvement as stated by the Malaysian public listing guidelines (Bursa Malaysia, 2000,
2009b) and the World Bank’s corporate governance framework (World Bank, 1991).
An exploration on the extent of collaborations and combined assurances in internal audit
is also carried out.
The primary analysis on the probability of an effective IAF and profiling of the internal
audit activities, level of AC involvement and areas of corporate governance is made
using the Rasch model. Non-parametric tests are also used to determine the statistical
significance of the relationships of the components investigated. In-depth interview data
are analysed using template analysis.
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The findings support the establishment of an in-house IAF with a definitive team size
and professional expertise for an effective IAF. Other IAF components are member
experience, combined audit activities and collaborations of audit activities. Although
these other components are not significantly related to the effectiveness of IAF, the indepth
interviews provided more explanations on their importance in internal audit. An
important structure of the IAF is the AC’s oversight role. The findings also indicate that
the level of ACs’ involvement in the reviews of each stage of the internal audit process
contributes to the overall effectiveness of IAF. Due to issues in staffing and the
changing business environment, collaborations particularly in risk management,
information technology audits and quality audits, are increasingly being used as a
strategy in internal audit to provide value add services. Further, as suggested by Sarens
(2009), the level of internal audit performance could now be identified to its impact on
corporate governance, for example such as in areas of expenditure management,
revenue management, analysis of data and conflict resolution.
The results have implications on the policy regarding internal control for public listed
companies, favouring an in-house internal audit function as opposed to outsourcing the
function, to address the recommendations on the effectiveness of ACs and its
relationship with IAFs. The practice of internal audit in future should be more
collaborative to harness the expertise and experience of other departmental personnel in
producing effective internal audit, ultimately creating a greater impact on corporate
governance.
Keywords: Internal audit, audit committee, corporate governance, performance,
collaborations, combined assurance, Rasch model