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This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.

The current study uses an advanced machine learning method and aims to investigate whether auditors perceive financial statements that are principles-based as less risky. More specifically, this study aims to explore the association between principles-based accounting standards and audit pricing and between principles-based accounting standards and the likelihood of receiving a going concern opinion.

The study uses an advanced machine-learning method to understand the role of principles-based accounting standards in predicting audit fees and going concern opinion. The study also uses multiple regression models defining audit fees and the probability of receiving going concern opinion. The analyses are complemented by additional tests such as economic significance, firm fixed effects, propensity score matching, entropy balancing, change analysis, yearly regression results and controlling for managerial risk-taking incentives and governance variables.

The paper provides empirical evidence that auditors charge less audit fees to clients whose financial statements are more principles-based. The finding suggests that auditors perceive financial statements that are principles-based less risky. The study also provides evidence that the probability of receiving a going-concern opinion reduces as firms rely more on principles-based standards. The finding further suggests that auditors discount the financial numbers supplied by the managers using rules-based standards. The study also reveals that the degree of reliance by a US firm on principles-based accounting standards has a negative impact on accounting conservatism, the risk of financial statement misstatement, accruals and the difficulty in predicting future earnings. This suggests potential mechanisms through which principles-based accounting standards influence auditors’ risk assessments.

The authors recognize the limitation of this study regarding the sample period. Prior studies compare rules vs principles-based standards by focusing on the differences between US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) or pre- and post-IFRS adoption, which raises questions about differences in cross-country settings and institutional environment and other confounding factors such as transition costs. This study addresses these issues by comparing rules vs principles-based standards within the US GAAP setting. However, this limits the sample period to the year 2006 because the measure of the relative extent to which a US firm is reliant upon principles-based standards is available until 2006.

The study has major public policy suggestions as it responds to the call by Jay Clayton and Mary Jo White, the former Chairs of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to pursue high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards to ensure that investors continue to receive clear and reliable financial information globally. The study also recognizes the notable public policy implications, particularly in light of the current Chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Andreas Barckow’s recent public statement, which emphasizes the importance of principles-based standards and their ability to address sustainability concerns, including emerging risks such as climate change.

The study has major public policy suggestions because it demonstrates the value of principles-based standards. The study responds to the call by Jay Clayton and Mary Jo White, the former Chairs of the US SEC, to pursue high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards to ensure that investors continue to receive clear and reliable financial information as business transactions and investor needs continue to evolve globally. The study also recognizes the notable public policy implications, particularly in light of the current Chair of the IASB Andreas Barckow’s recent public statement, which emphasizes the importance of principles-based standards and their ability to address sustainability concerns, including emerging risks like climate change. The study fills the gap in the literature that auditors perceive principles-based financial statements as less risky and further expands the literature by providing empirical evidence that the likelihood of receiving a going concern opinion is increasing in the degree of rules-based standards.

This study aims to examine how woman leadership (i.e., woman board chairperson, woman chief executive officer (CEO) and board gender diversity) affects audit fee and also ascertained the interactive effect of woman leadership and gender diversity on audit committee on audit fee.

The study applied ordinary least square and fixed-effect estimators on the data of 21 universal banks in Ghana for the period 2010–2021 to estimate the empirical results.

It is revealed that under the leadership of women (woman CEO and board gender diversity), higher external audit quality is ensured as higher audit fee is paid. Interestingly, it was found that with the presence of women on the audit committee, the integrity of internal controls and internal audit procedures are enhanced, which leads to quality financial reporting, calls for lower audit effort, hence lower audit fee.

The result indicates that firms can rely on the leadership of women in ensuring quality external audit and quality financial reporting, which ultimately helps to minimize the information risk to all stakeholders.

The paper contributes to extant literature by establishing that, under the leadership of women in banking entities from a developing country context, external audit quality and financial reporting are achieved.

This study aims to examine the effect of family ownership on audit fees and whether political connections moderate the causal relationship. Indonesia, as emerging countries, arguably offers appropriate research setting for this research because most Indonesian firms are family owned and exhibit weak investor protection. The authors predict that family ownership positively affects audit fees, and political connections strengthen this influence.

This study uses 98 listed manufacturing firms on Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2018–2020, resulting in 279 firm-year observations. Panel data regression used to test the hypothesis. Family ownership is divided into direct and indirect ownership while audit fees are measured by the natural logarithm of audit fees paid by the firms.

The results show that the greater total and direct family ownerships imply lower audit fees, while indirect family ownership does not affect audit fees. The finding is contrary to the alleged hypothesis. Further, political connections only strengthen direct family ownership's negative impact on audit fees.

This study's findings support the alignment effect hypothesis arguing that controlling shareholders, in this case, families, align their interests with non-controlling shareholders. These findings provide a different perspective from various empirical studies conducted in Asian countries where the majority of companies are also controlled.

This study investigates theoretical relationships among personality characteristics, preferences for different types of rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing by management-related higher education students. Specifically, the authors consider motivation, locus of control (internal and external) and self-efficacy (SE) as personality characteristics and financial, extrinsic, support and intrinsic as types of rewards.

Data were collected through a questionnaire targeted at management-related higher education students in Portugal. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The full sample results show that different types of motivation, locus of control and SE are related to different reward preferences. The authors also find a positive association between a preference for extrinsic rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing. Moreover, when the authors consider the role of working experience in the model, the authors find that the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing job differ according to that experience.

This study enriches the literature by assessing preferences for different types of rewards, considering multiple personality characteristics and a comprehensive set of rewards. Furthermore, the authors identify the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing career. This knowledge empowers auditing firms to devise recruitment strategies that resonate with candidates’ preferences, which boosts the capacity of these companies to attract new auditors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether audit committee characteristics, in particular audit committee size, audit committee activity and audit committee gender diversity, are associated with financial performance in Egyptian banks. The second purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance.

A multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance of a sample of Egyptian banks during the period between 2018 and 2022.

The results indicate that audit committee size has a negative and insignificant effect impact on return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), respectively. The results also indicate that the audit committee gender diversity has a significant positive impact on ROA and ROE, respectively. Regarding audit committee activity, the number of board meetings has a negative and insignificant effect on ROA and ROE, respectively. Regarding gender diversity as a moderating variable, in general there is a positive effect of gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance.

The study was limited to 20 banks in one country, but it sets the tone for future empirical research on this subject matter. The study also relied on one moderating variable, which is board gender diversity. This study provides an avenue for future research in the area of corporate governance and financial performance in other emerging countries, especially other African countries.

This study provides useful insights for managers and policymakers to better understand which audit committee characteristics can best encourage a company to improve financial performance. Furthermore, regulators should ensure that banks strictly adhere to corporate governance principles to build a strong banking industry capable of achieving economic development.

Banks will benefit equally from valuable qualities across demographic groupings in society by having females on the audit committee and appropriate audit committee meetings. Additionally, if audit committee members are correctly selected, banks with more females in audit committee and suitable audit committee meetings can successfully contribute to strengthening financial performance and social welfare of diverse segments of society. A culture of good banking governance must emerge to improve bank financial stability and, as a result, greater stability and economic growth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is, perhaps, the first to examine the moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial performance in Egyptian banks. This study adds to the literature by investigating such an issue in a developing economy that operates in a different context than those in developed countries.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on anti-corruption disclosure (A-CD), paying particular attention to the FTSE 100. Notably, it examines how board and audit committees’ characteristics affect the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

Data from FTSE 100 firms, spanning the period from 2014 to 2020, were analysed using the regression of the Poisson fixed effect and GEE analyses.

The findings show that gender diversity, audit committee expertise and the independence of the audit committee are positively associated with both quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure. Notably, no statistically significant relationships were identified between anti-corruption disclosure and factors such as board size, role duality or board meetings.

The findings provide valuable insights for decision-makers and regulatory bodies, shedding light on the elements that compel UK companies to enhance their anti-corruption disclosure and governance protocols to alleviate corruption and propel efforts towards ethical behaviour.

This study makes a notable contribution to the sparse body of evidence by examining the influence of board and audit committee attributes on anti-corruption disclosure subsequent to the implementation of the UK Bribery Act in 2010. Specifically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study assesses for the first time the impact of board and audit committee mechanisms on both the quantity and quality of anti-corruption disclosure.

This research paper aims to investigate the effects of internal audit’s (IA) use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality.

The authors conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment among upper and middle managers where the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors are manipulated.

Results highlight the importance of internal auditor use of data analytics and performance of consulting activities to improve perceived IA quality. First, managers perceive internal auditors as more competent when the auditors use data analytics. Second, managers perceive internal auditors’ recommendations as more relevant when the auditors perform consulting activities. Finally, managers perceive an improvement in the quality of relationships with internal auditors when auditors perform consulting activities, which is strengthened when internal auditors combine the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities.

From a theoretical perspective, this research builds on the IA quality framework by considering digitalization as a contextual factor. This research focused on the perceptions of one major stakeholder of the IA function: senior management. Future research should investigate the perceptions of other stakeholders and other contextual factors.

This research suggests that internal auditors should prioritize the development of the consulting role in their function and develop their digital expertise, especially expertise in data analytics, to improve perceived IA quality.

This research tests the impacts of the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality holistically, by testing Trotman and Duncan’s (2018) framework using an experiment.

This study aims to assess the impact of determinants on the effectiveness of internal audit (IA) within the banking industry of Bangladesh.

The data was obtained through 152 survey questionnaires from a total of 43 privately owned and six state-owned commercial banks in Bangladesh. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling.

The findings demonstrate that the independence of internal auditors and the quality of IA substantially impact enhancing the efficiency of IA. On the other hand, the competence of internal auditors and management support in IA functions do not significantly impact the effectiveness of IA.

The study’s findings may have significant policy implications for the government, regulators, internal auditors, management committees and other stakeholders in establishing programmes to enhance the efficacy of IA as a component of banking audit management reforms.

This study makes three distinct contributions to the existing literature. Firstly, previous literature focused on the determinants affecting the external audit efficiency of the public companies and banking sectors in Bangladesh (Hasan, 2018; M. M. U. Reza, 2021). In this study, the author enhances the research by presenting empirical findings on the IA effectiveness of banks. Secondly, the author expands the research by incorporating both private and state-owned commercial banks as samples. Thirdly, the study is unique given that it investigates the effectiveness of IA in response to the recent financial scandals in the banking industry of Bangladesh (The Daily Star, 2023).

This study aims to investigate the factors associated with the intention to use information technology in audit (ITIA) in Iraq.

The study uses a quantitative approach based on a questionnaire survey of 186 respondents. The study population includes respondents who are board members, senior executives, internal auditors and information technology (IT) assistants in various Iraqi organizations from different sectors. Structural equation modeling has been used to estimate the results.

The findings exhibit that most auditors in Iraq use basic IT software. However, among several specialized and advanced IT audit software packages, only generalized audit software is used by about 20%. The results also indicate that social factors significantly and positively impact auditors’ and practitioners’ perceptions of ITIA use. Moreover, the results reveal that companies and auditors who use or audit complex accounting systems perceive higher benefits and intent to adopt ITIA. However, the results report that organizational support, professional support, competency and IT education have an insignificant effect on ITIA adoption.

The originality of the present research lies in several aspects. First, the research study focuses specifically on Iraq, which is an emerging and less developed country influenced by social and economic. This research context provides a unique perspective and contributes to the understanding of ITIA adoption in less developed countries. The study investigates how external factors, including social and external pressure and the support of government professional bodies, affect the adoption of ITIA. Further, it assesses the influence of firms’ specific factors such as management support, level of competency and complexity of accounting information systems. Second, the study uses a quantitative approach with a questionnaire survey from various Iraqi organizations and sectors. The specific sample composition adds originality by capturing insights from different levels of organizational hierarchy and diverse professional backgrounds. Third, the findings shed light on the current IT usage in auditing practices in Iraq, highlighting that most auditors use basic IT software and the limited adoption of specialized IT audit software packages. Finally, the study’s originality is also reflected in its contribution to expanding knowledge on the perceived benefits and challenges associated with ITIA adoption in less developed countries. By emphasizing the need for broader awareness of emerging technology-enabled auditing software and considering the unique characteristics of less developed countries, the research provides valuable insights and implications for practitioners, policymakers and researchers.