Value Added Services of Internal Auditors: An Exploratory Study on Consulting Role in Malaysian Environment

This paper discusses the added value that business can gain from the internal auditors via their consulting role. It is an explanatory study that provides an overview of the consulting activities within the business context. In the current complexity and constantly changing business issues, leveraging on the wealth of collective information about the business obtained by internal auditors in order to add value and improve organizational competitiveness would be a good strategy. In the stewardship perspective, internal audit would support the board and management team through consulting role and are expected to provide advice on the business improvement or future investment opportunities if the company is aggressive for new ventures etc. Fifteen (15) in-depth interviews with the Heads of Internal Audit departments from large Malaysian organizations were carried out. This is to investigate the nature, and extent of consulting activity in the companies analyzed. The results show that internal auditors provided consultation upon the request of management, board of directors or audit committee, on ad-hoc basis to help improve business operations and to achieve organizational objectives. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a deeper insight into factors influencing the internal auditors’ consulting role. It investigates an unexplored area of the role of internal auditors as consultants and opens several interesting avenues for future research.