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The article aims to determine the implementation extent of the regulations around appointment and characteristics of audit committees and regulations concerning disclosure of information about the audit committee in Polish practice.

The author analyzed the informative content of management reports and corporate governance statements. The survey covered all domestic companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the years from 2017 to 2021.

The new guidelines resulting from hard law had a significant impact on the corporate governance on the Polish capital market. According to the research results, over the analyzed years, the share of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which appointed an audit committee within the supervisory board, clearly increased. Moreover, the research found that in the period under study, not all companies fulfilled the obligation to disclose information about the audit committee resulting from hard law. In particular, this applies to disclosures on how the members of the audit committee acquired competencies in the area of accounting.

The article concerns the operation of the audit committee in public companies listed on the Polish capital market. The study can serve as a reference point for further research on corporate governance. The results of the research may be an indication for those who create legal solutions in the area of corporate governance.

This is the first such comprehensive study on the characteristics of the audit committee and disclosures about the audit committee resulting from the introduction of hard law in this area.

The study examines the relationship between nonaudit services (NAS) and accruals quality in Malaysia. The study also considers several important characteristics of audit committee as the determinant for accruals quality. Next, the study examines whether these characteristics mitigate the relationship between NAS and accruals quality.

The study employs descriptive analysis, univariate tests and multivariate regression to investigate the potential effect of NAS on acruals quality. Data for audit committee characteristics were hand collected from annual reports downloaded from Bursa Malaysia's website.

Based on 1,118 firm-year observations for the period 2009–2011, the study finds that NAS negatively impact accruals quality. This empirical result indicates that the economic bond that is created between auditors and clients restricts the auditors from performing their duty objectively. A fully independent audit committee weakens the negative relationship between NAS and auditor independence.

The sample period represents a limitation since it only covers three years of data. This limitation is largely driven by the nature of data collection of NAS fees.

These results contribute to Malaysia's policy deliberation to account for the effects of NAS on auditor independence and the oversight role of an audit committee. This study contributes to theoretical perspectives on accruals quality and corporate governance in Malaysia.

The novelty of this research, coupled with institutional data in Malaysia, claims the originality of this research.

This study is designed and directed to analyze the effect of board characteristics and audit committee attributes on the firm performance of publicly listed commercial banks of Bangladesh.

Thirty publicly listed commercial banks of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) have been taken as sample for this study. Data have been collected from annual reports between 2011 and 2017 of the assessed banks. Pooled OLS model has been used for running regression model of this study.

Board independence has a negative and significant relationship with ROA and Tobin's Q. However, Board Independence has a positive and significant relationship with Stock Return. On the other hand, Board Diversity has a negative and significant relationship with ROA and ROE, which implies inefficiency of diversified board members in the context of Bangladesh. Family duality has a positive and significant relationship with ROA and a negative and significant relationship with Stock return. Board Meeting has a positive and significant relationship with ROA. Audit Committee Size has a negative and significant relationship with Tobins' Q. Independence of audit committee chairman has a negative and significant relationship with Tobin's Q and Stock Returns. Presence of non-executive directors and number of audit meetings have no significant relationship with any of the predicted variables.

Among all variables of the board characteristics, role of independent directors and participation of female directors have conflicting results in this study. This has raised a question about the fair appointment independent directors and their objective view on the board. Female directors' role is not convincing in the context of Bangladesh as most of the commercial banks are family-owned. Policymakers can tighten and supervise the appointment of independent directors to ensure good governance in the banking sector. Moreover, role of audit committee and independence of audit committee chairman have generated conflicting results in terms of market-based performance measure.

Banking sector of Bangladesh experiences huge corruption in the form of excessive NPLs and poor management quality which results in low profit for the firm. This study has explored the problems of management quality and flaws of audit committee which is hampering overall growth of banking industry. Improvement of independent directors' appointment and audit committee formation and reporting will certainly help banking industry of Bangladesh to improve overall performance.

This study aims to identify the factors that lead non-financial companies listed in the UK to use an internal audit function (IAF) as a monitoring mechanism. Although the use of an IAF in the UK is voluntary, no prior research has examined the drivers for using one.

Financial and non-financial data were collected from the annual reports of 332 UK non-financial companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Main Market. Univariate tests and multivariate logistic regression tests were used to test the research hypotheses. A theoretical framework based on both agency theory and transaction cost economics (TCE) theory was used to explain the economic factors affecting the use of an IAF.

The study provides evidence that firm size, level of internal risks, agency problem between owners and managers and existence of an effective audit committee are associated with the existence of an IAF. Thus, the need to have strong internal control and risk management systems and to reduce both internal and external agency costs drives companies to have an IAF. These results suggest the importance of IAF as an internal corporate governance tool and the effectiveness of UK governance regulations in monitoring the effectiveness of internal control systems.

Given the importance of the IAF’s corporate governance role, the study provides some policy implications. Regulators should pay more attention to the issue of maintaining an IAF, especially by large companies, the relationship between the IAF and other governance parties, especially the audit committee, and the disclosure of more relevant information about the IAF’s characteristics and practices.

This is the first study to examine the factors affecting the existence of the IAF within the UK’s distinctive regulatory approach of “comply or disclose reasons”. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical framework that explains how both the agency theory and TCE theory can interpret the adoption of internal audit.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the factors that affect an auditor’s efficiency in completing the audit process proxied by audit report lag. The factors used in this study are selected by looking at the characteristics of the company and the characteristics of an auditor.

Company characteristics were proxied by the audit committee effectiveness, financial condition, accounting complexity and profitability, whereas auditor characteristics were proxied with auditor reputation, audit tenure and auditors industry specialization. Populations of this study were all manufacturing companies listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange in 2014–2016. Based on the purposive sampling method, the number of samples obtained from 231 companies was 77. Multiple linear regression method was used to analyze this study. Hypothesis testing was done by statistical t-test (partial).

The results showed that partially variables of the audit committee effectiveness and profitability had a significant negative effect on audit report lag while the variable financial condition had a significant positive effect on audit report lag. Meanwhile, variables of the accounting complexity, auditor reputation, audit tenure and auditors’ industry specialization did not show significant influence on audit report lag.

This study tests both company’s and auditor’s characteristic on audit report lag that as far as authors know never been tested simultaneously.

The purpose of this paper is to test the influences of audit committee’s and company’s characteristic on intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) among the LQ45-listed companies in Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) between 2013 and 2014.

The paper employed multiple linear regression and saturation sample as the analysis methods.

The findings showed that size of audit committee does not significantly influence ICD; meeting frequency of audit committee positively influences ICD; and company size does not influence ICD positively. On the other hand, profitability does not significantly influence ICD; leverage has negative and significant influence on ICD; and the type of industry does not significantly influence intellectual capital disclosure.

As there are few ICD studies, this research will surely add ICD antecedents to literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of voluntary disclosures in UK higher education institutions’ (HEIs) annual reports and examine whether internal governance structures influence disclosure in the period following major reform and funding constraints.

The authors adopt a modified version of Coy and Dixon’s (2004) public accountability index, referred to in this paper as a public accountability and transparency index (PATI), to measure the extent of voluntary disclosures in 130 UK HEIs’ annual reports. Informed by a multi-theoretical framework drawn from public accountability, legitimacy, resource dependence and stakeholder perspectives, the authors propose that the characteristics of governing and executive structures in UK universities influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures.

The authors find a large degree of variability in the level of voluntary disclosures by universities and an overall relatively low level of PATI (44 per cent), particularly with regards to the disclosure of teaching/research outcomes. The authors also find that audit committee quality, governing board diversity, governor independence and the presence of a governance committee are associated with the level of disclosure. Finally, the authors find that the interaction between executive team characteristics and governance variables enhances the level of voluntary disclosures, thereby providing support for the continued relevance of a “shared” leadership in the HEIs’ sector towards enhancing accountability and transparency in HEIs.

In spite of significant funding cuts, regulatory reforms and competitive challenges, the level of voluntary disclosure by UK HEIs remains low. Whilst the role of selected governance mechanisms and “shared leadership” in improving disclosure, is asserted, the varying level and selective basis of the disclosures across the surveyed HEIs suggest that the public accountability motive is weaker relative to the other motives underpinned by stakeholder, legitimacy and resource dependence perspectives.

This is the first study which explores the association between HEI governance structures, managerial characteristics and the level of disclosure in UK HEIs.

This paper focuses on bank audit committees and examines whether audit committee members who are former auditors are associated with the acquisition of audit and non-audit services from their former employers.

The study empirically examines a sample of large banks that are included in the S&P Composite 1500.

The paper reports significantly lower audit fees and a higher proportion of non-audit fees to total fees when the audit committee chair is an alumnus of the incumbent audit firm. Moreover, additional analysis reveals that these findings are stronger for banks with more earnings management.

Overall, the findings indicate that audit firms might consider banks using their alumni as audit committee chairs to be less risky or easier to audit, thus requiring relatively less effort from the auditors. The reduced effort required to audit clients with audit firm alumni on their audit committees then has the effect of reducing the audit fees charged. Alternatively, their auditing experience and cognitive proximity might influence the assessment of the need for auditing or the ability to negotiate lower audit fees on the part of audit firm alumni.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the association between audit firm alumni in influential positions on an audit committee and fees paid to those audit firms in the banking industry. The findings contribute to the literature by suggesting that banks with affiliated former auditors chairing their audit committees not only have significantly lower audit fees but also a higher proportion is spent on non-audit services.

The main aim of the present study is to assess the moderating effect of joint audit (JA) on the relationship between audit committee effectiveness (ACEFF) and audit quality (AQ) in Egypt.

The sample included 61 non-financial corporations listed on the Egyptian Exchange from 2016 through 2020. The results are estimated using panel data analysis with fixed-effect models.

The findings exhibit that audit committee (AC) independence, ACEFF; and audit firm size negatively affect AQ. Conversely, the influence of AC meetings on AQ is positive and significant. The findings also reveal that JA moderates the relation between the ACEFF and AQ.

The study offers theoretical contributions to corporate governance mechanisms, JA; and AQ by using data from listed firms in Egypt. The study is the first one that examines the moderating role of JA on ACEFF and AQ.

The study has practical implications for investors, board members, practitioners, academicians; and policymakers. Moreover, the study contributes using a composite measure for the ACEFF score.

The findings, supported by agency, resource dependence; and signaling theories, contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between ACEFF, AQ; and JA. The evidence about JA is still unknown in developing countries. Further, revisiting AQ with different measures, particularly accounting conservatism, has not been a subject of prior studies.

This study aims to understand independence in internal auditing by investigating how internal auditor independence is constructed when analysed in its corporate governance context.

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the corporate governance reports of Swedish large stock market listed non-financial companies, for three consecutive years, is undertaken, using a theoretical lens of organisational embeddedness and operational coupling to understand independence as a situated practice.

The study develops four archetypes of internal auditor independence – autarchic, instrumental, symbiotic and subservient – and discusses each archetype's implications for independence, related to tripartite relations with management and the audit committee, regarding who has the mandate to direct work and how the work is done. It finds that internal auditors always have a capacity to be independent. Although they are not independent in relation to agents in the subservient archetype, they are independent of those down the organisational chain of command, suggesting independence is both situational and relational.

The analysis contributes a novel approach to the literature and develops a conception of independence using the dimensions of embeddedness and coupling. The archetypes offer an analytical framework for future studies on independence.

Internal auditors may understand their practice differently through the archetypes that result from this study.

Internal auditors' power relations within corporate governance further an understanding of the pressures on internal auditors and their role.

This study contributes new knowledge on the situatedness of independence by showing how internal auditors are embedded and coupled helps build their independence.