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The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge and obtain an understanding of the phenomenon of public sector external auditing (PSEA) in Tanzania.

The paper used a grounded theory method informed by a critical approach. It used data from multiple sources including interviews, observations and documents, to provide a theoretical and practical understanding of PSEA in Tanzania. The theoretical aspects were developed ‘in vivo’ and were also informed by the Habermasian concept of colonisation.

The principal research findings from the data concern the central phenomenon of managing colonising tendencies in PSEA which appeared to be the core strategy for both the government and external auditors. While the government appeared to manage the National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT) appearance and exploited the legitimising features of PSEA, external auditors manoeuvred within colonising tendencies and attempted to maintain the ‘audit supremacy’ image. PSEA in Tanzania encountered colonising tendencies because of weak working relationship between the NAOT and other accountability agencies, inconsistencies in governance and politics, the culture of corruption and secrecy, dependence on foreign financing and mimicking of foreign models. To coexist within this colonising environment, external auditors managed their relationship with auditees and the complexities of PSEA roles. Managing colonising tendencies resulted into obscured subordination of PSEA, contributing to cosmetic accountability and growing public interest in PSEA.

It is hoped that future research in other countries, in and beyond Africa, will be undertaken to broaden and deepen our understanding of the external auditing of public sector entities.

The paper combines grounded theory with a critical approach to understand PSEA in a developing country.

This chapter adopts Porter’s ‘audit trinity’ approach comprising internal audit, external audit and audit committee to discuss the role auditing can play in the management of corporate fraud.

The chapter maps the historical background of and the developments in external audit as an assurance service, the internal audit function and the audit committee. Based on this, it explains the nature, types and possible causes of corporate fraud within the context of business risk with a view to establishing how auditing can help in managing such frauds.

The chapter highlights the relationships that should exist between the three audit types in order to support a sound internal control system as a tool for preventing and detecting corporate fraud.

The chapter identifies cost, opportunity, connivance and managerial override as factors that could limit the ability of auditing to manage corporate fraud. It also suggests ways of addressing these limitations.

As the current upward trend in IT adoption for corporate operations continue to open new sets of corporate fraud windows, this chapter examines how an entity’s internal controls can be used to prevent and detect these growing fraud schemes.

The chapter’s unique strength is its adoption of a holistic approach to auditing to suggest ways of managing corporate fraud – a novelty in the corporate fraud literature. It is hoped that future research in the area will bring empirical insights to the issues raised and perspectives covered in the chapter.

In the Netherlands, the majority of financial and compliance audits of local government are conducted by private audit firms, while courts of audit are in charge of conducting performance audits. External auditors are appointed by the municipal council based on a tendering procedure, creating a dual system of responsibilities between the council and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The recent trend that several large audit firms have withdrawn from the municipal audit market and the strong need for public sector expertise because of the complexity and uniqueness of local government call for rethinking current auditing practices in this sector.

This chapter captures and summarises the public sector auditing practices of Swiss subnational and local governments. Following the federal structure of Switzerland and the constitutional principle of decentralisation, lower government levels independently self-elaborate their audit institutions and structures, which is why a large variety of public sector audit arrangements exists. Local government audit mainly varies between the subnational states/cantons regarding the allocation of the external audit function and the qualitative requirements underlying the constitution of the auditing bodies. Depending on the cantonal legislative framework, local government audit is performed by a body of direct-democratically elected lay-auditors, a professional audit firm, an own independent auditing office or in a shared arrangement involving multiple of these actors.

National differences in the demand for voluntary external audits have been linked to multiple factors, such as differences in a country's rate of growth, access to external credit, and institutional quality. Audits, however, also have a psychological cost, whose intensity is genetically and culturally hereditary. Using a sample of 3,072 private firms across 34 industries in seven countries, including five countries or regions from the former Soviet Comecon, we find that a country's share of firms choosing to undergo external audits is negatively related to the prevalence of carriers of the G allele in the mu-opioid receptor gene's A118G polymorphism, also known as the “social sensitivity” gene. Furthermore, the relationship between the prevalence of the social sensitivity gene and audits is fully mediated by a national culture's degree of collectivism. The results are statistically and economically highly significant and remain robust to the introduction of a set of confounding factors at the firm and country levels. Our results have practical relevance in recognizing psychological diversity when conducting audits and, more generally, preventing burnout in the workplace.

The need for independent audit goes back to the agency theory, the theory of delegation of power and the issue of trust. Stakeholders delegate power to management to manage the business on their behalf, yet they face the risk of information asymmetry and management motivations to commit fraud. The main aim of having an independent auditor was therefore to reduce the risk of information asymmetry and fraudulent behaviour by management. Auditors are required by the International Auditing Standards to detect material fraud and error, and they are expected to have a duty of care for stakeholders. However, recently independent auditors, whether conducting private or public audit, have been scrutinised for failing to detect material fraud. There have been a lot of discussions in the literature about the role of private auditors in detecting fraud, but very little discussions about the role of public auditors in detecting fraud. This chapter will outline the difference between private audit and public audit; explain the legal liability of public auditors in relation to fraud detection; the role of public auditors in detecting fraud; and will critically review the root causes for auditors’ failure to detect fraud.

On the one hand, the auditing of the public hospitals regarding their financial information is carried out by the State Audit Court which is the Supreme Auditing Institution in our country, on the other hand it is carried out by the auditors of the Ministry of Health. While the audits made by the Ministry of Health are generally about compatibility and medical controls, the financial information of the hospitals needs to be made by the external independent auditors and their impact on the general budget needs to be determined.

In this study, the subject matter of financial auditing has been elaborated on within the specificity of the public health sector and evaluated as to whether the conducted auditing is effective in determining the mistakes in the financial information of the organizations. For the purpose of conducting the evaluation, the six-year auditing reports between the years of 2012 and 2017 of the Supreme Auditing Institution (State Audit Court) conducting the financial auditing of the public health sector regarding the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey (Türkiye Kamu Hastaneleri Kurumu). The auditing reports are addressed within the framework of the types and numbers of findings determined by the State Audit Court, the responses that the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey has given against those findings and the opinion of auditing. In the consequence of the conducted evaluation, it was concluded that the Court of Accounts was effective in determining the mistakes in the financial reports and increasing the correctness and reliability of the financial information of the Administration.

The Portuguese local government is subject to several controls that have evolved substantially throughout the last decades. This chapter offers a summary of the current state of these controls, particularly focussing on municipalities. The political parties of the opposition who sit in the Executive Board monitor all decisions. The Assembly exerts supervision and political control. The central government supervises legal and financial activities through a finance inspection body. The Court of Audit has a technical and jurisdictional control. Finally, the external auditor gives an opinion on the true and fair view of the municipality’s accounts, comprising both budgetary and financial statements. Because public financial management still mainly focusses on the (inputs-based) budget, conformity auditing takes precedence over other types of control.

Purpose – This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the role of corporate governance in developing, emerging and transition economies by focusing on the nature and practice of corporate governance in listed companies in Nigeria – a country which has experienced both economic growth and political turbulence over the past three decades and which too has experienced significant corporate failures in particular in the banking and insurance sectors. It does this against a contextual background which discusses issues of ethnicity, gender and power relationships and their relevance to governance in Nigeria.

Methodology – Archival and documentary analysis supported and underpinned by semi-structured interviews with 20 stakeholders in governance processes in Nigeria.

Findings – The analysis of the interviews highlighted the general support of the interviewees for corporate governance procedures and practices in Nigeria to continue to develop in line with those in more developed economies. However, concerns were expressed as to the inadequacies of aspects of the Nigerian governance regulatory infrastructure, in particular in relation to mechanisms for implementation and enforcement within a framework where there was limited confidence that either voluntary adherence to codes of good practice or market-driven regulation and control would be effective.

Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, the majority of the interviewees articulated the perspective that ethnicity, gender and power relationships were not of significance in the determination of the actuality of practice. However, a minority did identify these considerations to be of key importance, albeit frequently not overtly acknowledged or portrayed as such by parties associated with governance practices.

Research limitation(s) – The interviewees were drawn from a cross section of stakeholders from the business, government, regulatory and academic environment in Nigeria but the exigencies of conducting interview research in Nigeria and the difficulties of obtaining agreement from, and access to, interviewees meant that the potential for self-selection bias has to be considered when evaluating the study findings.

Practical Implication(s) – The research paper provides a platform for policy formulation on corporate governance in Nigeria.

Originality and value of paper – The paper builds on a number of previous studies of governance in Nigeria (for example, Oyejide & Soyibo, 2001; Yakasai, 2001; Ahunwan, 2002; Okike, 2007) in particular by means of the use of semi-structured interviews to provide a rich field of insight into the actuality of practice.