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Internal Auditors’ Assessment of their Contribution to Financial Statement Audits: The Relation with Audit Committee and Internal Audit Function Characteristics
Author(s) -
Zain Mazlina Mat,
Subramaniam Nava,
Stewart Jenny
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of auditing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1099-1123
pISSN - 1090-6738
DOI - 10.1111/j.1099-1123.2006.00306.x
Subject(s) - accounting , internal audit , joint audit , chief audit executive , walk through test , audit evidence , audit , business , information technology audit , audit plan , audit committee , financial statement
This paper examines the relation between audit committee characteristics, internal audit function characteristics and internal auditors’ assessment of their contribution to financial statement audits. Using survey data from chief internal auditors of 76 Malaysian publicly‐listed firms, we provide evidence of a positive relationship between internal auditors’ assessment of their contribution to financial statement audits and three audit committee characteristics: the proportion of independent audit committee members, their knowledge and experience of accounting and auditing, and the extent of audit committee review of internal audit programmes, budget and coordination proposals. Further, a positive relationship is found between internal auditors’ evaluation of their contribution to the financial statement audit and internal audit function characteristics including size, prior experience of staff in auditing, time availability and the closeness of the function’s relationship with the external auditor. The results indicate that more effective audit committees and well‐resourced internal audit units tend to be positively associated with the internal auditors’ assessment of their contribution to the external audit.