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Internal auditing assumes an increased responsibility for the evaluation of entity operations as a service to management and the board of directors. Quality assurance review is the process through which assurance is obtained that the internal auditing department’s work is done in accordance with the Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing. This study examines the current practices of quality assurance review in South Africa. Although not all organisations surveyed do perform internal auditing quality assurance reviews, the organisations that do, benefit from them. Various methods are used in practice to perform internal and external quality assurance reviews. This study provides information on the processes and procedures used in quality assurance review programmes.

This study compares quality assurance across two case studies in the UK; a commercial organization operating in the private sector and a university. Case Study A is a private education organization specializing in the delivery of business and management programs. Case Study B is a university that delivers courses across four academic schools and through a number of partnerships. The business school offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in business management, economics, accounting, events, tourism, marketing, entrepreneurialism, and human resources. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 organizational members from across the two organizations including 8 academics/tutors, 6 of whom are also employed as external examiners and/or external quality assurers (EQAs). The study compares the remit of both EQA working on behalf of awarding bodies and external examiners working on behalf of universities. The EQA role is conceptualized as an “arbiter of standards” whereas the external examiner is more likely to be considered as “critical friend.” This variance in conception has important implications for the way the process of quality assurance is conducted and utilized in support of program and institutional development. The research finds that one of the most significant differences between quality assurance processes in Case Studies A and B is the way in which student feedback is collected and utilized to support and enhance the process of review. This chapter provides recommendations designed to capitalize on the value of the quality assurance process through greater alignment of teaching and assessment strategy and policies and procedures in practice.

Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study aims to investigate whether the benefits of the external assurance process pass beyond the current period and help firms improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the subsequent periods. Furthermore, the authors examine whether corporate governance (CG) and firm visibility moderate the relationship between assurance and CSR performance.

The authors retrieved data from Thomson Reuters from 2002 to 2019 and executed a fixed-effects (FE) panel regression analysis. The country-level sample distribution includes 63 countries with 4,625 unique firms and 29,054 data points within these countries. The authors run several robustness tests using an alternative subsample, instrumental variable regression analysis, country-industry-year FE regression analysis, excluding the financial sector and including additional control variables and regression analysis based on propensity score matching.

The findings indicate that external assurance helps firms achieve greater CSR performance in the current period and the subsequent two periods following external assurance. However, external assurance exerts its strongest positive impact on CSR performance in the current period, and its influence extends, albeit at a weaker level, to the following two periods. Furthermore, the first moderation analysis reveals that governance structure helps firms translate the assurance process into the greater social performance but does not help to achieve higher environmental performance. The second moderation analysis reveals that firm visibility/size positively moderates between the assurance process and governance and social performance but not between the assurance process and environmental performance.

Despite the concurrent association between CSR performance and assurance being examined before, the lag-lead relationship is the novelty of the study to highlight the long-term effect of assurance on CSR performance. Besides, although the direct effect of both CG practices and firm visibility on CSR performance and the external assurance process has been investigated before, the authors extend the literature by examining the moderating effect of CG practices and firm visibility on the external assurance and CSR performance relationship. This provides a better explanation of the extent to which the effect of external assurance on CSR performance is constructed and conditioned by CG practices and firm visibility, thereby drawing attention to contingencies’ role in firms’ practices.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief for property occupiers who look to monitor trends in sustainability reporting. The paper offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the UK’s leading commercial property companies are embracing the concept of materiality and commissioning independent external assurance as a part of their sustainability reporting processes and some wider reflections on materiality and external assurance in sustainability reporting.

The paper begins with a review of the characteristics of materiality and external assurance and an outline of the drivers for, and challenges to, sustainability for property companies. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading UK property companies’ corporate websites.

The paper reveals that approximately half of the UK’s leading property companies had embraced materiality or commissioned some form of independent external assurance as an integral part of their sustainability reporting processes. In many ways, this reduces the reliability and credibility of the leading property companies’ sustainability reports. Looking to the future, growing stakeholder pressure may persuade more of the UK’s leading property companies to embrace materiality and commission external assurance as systematic and integral elements in the sustainability reporting process.

The paper provides an accessible review of the current status of materiality and external assurance among the UK’s leading commercial property companies’ sustainability reporting. As such, it will not only interest occupiers but also professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in sustainability in the property industry.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary examination of the extent to which the UK’s leading house builders are embracing the concept of materiality and commissioning independent external assurance as part of their sustainability reporting processes and to offer some wider reflections on materiality and external assurance in sustainability reporting.

The paper begins with a review of the characteristics of materiality and external assurance and a brief outline of house building in the UK and of the sustainability challenges the industry faces. The information on which the paper is based is drawn for the top twenty UK house builders’ corporate Websites.

The paper reveals that only a minority of the UK’s top 20 house builders had embraced materiality or commissioned some form of independent external assurance or verification as an integral part of their sustainability reporting processes. In many ways this reduces the reliability and credibility of the house builders’ sustainability reports. Looking to the future growing stakeholder pressure may force the UK’s house builders to embrace materiality and commission external assurance as systematic and integral elements in the sustainability reporting process.

The paper provides an accessible review of the current status of materiality and external assurance in the UK house builders’ sustainability reporting process, and as such it will interest professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in sustainability in the construction industry.

The purposes of this paper are to provide a preliminary examination of the extent to which Europe’s leading commercial property companies are embracing the concept of materiality and commissioning independent external assurance as part of their sustainability reporting processes and to offer some wider reflections on materiality and external assurance in sustainability reporting.

The paper begins with an introduction to corporate sustainability, an outline of the European property market and of the drivers for, and challenges to, sustainability for property companies and a review of the characteristics of materiality and external assurance. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading European commercial property companies’ corporate websites.

The paper reveals that all of Europe’s leading property companies had either reported or provided information on sustainability but that only approximately half of these companies had embraced materiality or commissioned some form of independent external assurance as an integral part of their sustainability reporting processes. In many ways, this reduces the reliability and credibility of the leading property companies’ sustainability reports. Looking to the future, growing stakeholder pressure may force more of the leading European property companies to embrace materiality and commission external assurance as systematic and integral elements in the sustainability reporting process.

The paper provides an accessible review of the current status of materiality and external assurance among Europe’s leading commercial property companies’ sustainability reporting and as such it will interest professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the sustainability in the property industry.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of external assurance on the level of voluntary corporate climate change disclosures by Finnish firms.

The sample of this study includes 228 firm-year observations over the period 2008–2015 for listed Finnish companies that have issued sustainability reports and responded to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire at least once during the sample period. The authors conduct a panel regression analysis to study the afore-mentioned linkage. In addition, the Tobit regression model is also estimated to check the robustness of our findings.

The findings suggest that assurance has a highly significant positive impact on the level of corporate climate change disclosures even after controlling for the effect of a number of control variables. Moreover, among the control variables, firm size and asset age are found to have significant effect on the extent of carbon emissions disclosure. Furthermore, the additional analysis reveals that the type of assurance providers (accounting firms vs non-accounting firms) and the type of financial auditors (Big4 financial auditors vs non-Big4 financial auditors) do not influence the level of climate change disclosure of assured companies.

This research is subject to certain limitations. First, the source of the data used in this research is the CDP database which has limitations in that it is a voluntary disclosure process where all the observations collected are self-reported by the responding firms. This may bias the reported findings. Second, our sample includes only listed companies and hence the results might have limited explanatory capacity for unlisted firms.

By using the results of this research, corporate managers will be able to reduce the information asymmetry between various stakeholders and them through disclosure of accurate, reliable and credible environmental information. Such disclosures will, in turn, allow socially responsible investors to choose eco-friendly investments and will thus enable them to make appropriate investment decisions.

Research on the external assurance-corporate climate change disclosure nexus is scarce. This study addresses this gap in the nonfinancial disclosure assurance literature by demonstrating that external assurance increases the level of voluntary corporate climate change disclosure. Drawing on stakeholder-agency theory, this study views external assurance as a monitoring structure that potentially curbs the monitoring problem between corporate managers and other stakeholders and increases the amount of climate change disclosures making a possible avenue for the reduction of the information asymmetry between them.

This research complements the corporate reporting literature by exploring the different types of assurance, which companies are using to bolster the credibility of their integrated and sustainability reports. A composite quality measure is proposed and this study aims to provide evidence on how combined assurance quality (CAQ) varies among firms.

Content analysis is used to identify “elements” of combined assurance disclosed in integrated and sustainability reports and company webpages. Results are presented in tabular format and supported by non-parametric tests to evaluate differences in CAQ among firms in more detail.

Combined assurance is framed as a function of the responsibility of the board of directors to ensure accurate, complete and reliable reporting and the characteristics of different internal and external sources of assurance. Overall, combined assurance models are being designed conservatively. They focus mainly on specific disclosures and are guided by a limited number of assurance methodologies or frameworks instead of taking a more pluralistic approach to verification of integrated and sustainability reports as a whole.

The study is based on combined assurance practices by a sample of large listed companies in a single jurisdiction. An international comparison of combined assurance and the calibration of the proposed quality measure is deferred for future research.

Limitations in existing assurance practices are identified for the consideration of preparers and assurance providers. The quality schematic also offers practitioners, standard-setters and academics an easy-to-apply technique for examining the different elements of a company’s combined assurance model.

A better understanding of the quality of combined assurance is essential for users’ to place reliance on integrated and sustainability reports and for informing change to existing assurance practices.

The study is the first to examine the operation and quality of combined assurance. The method used to gauge assurance quality provides a useful basis for a more detailed empirical study on the relevance of combined assurance.

This paper aims to investigate whether providing voluntary external assurance on voluntary environmental information by firms operating in environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) is relevant in terms of market value. It also examines how various characteristics of assurance statements (i.e. level of assurance, scope of assurance and provider of assurance) affect the value-relevance of environmental disclosure by ESI firms.

To mitigate the endogeneity problem, the authors use the two-step generalized method of moments estimation approach.

Focusing on annual and social reports of French companies listed in the SBF120 index, results show that environmental disclosure by ESI firms and its assurance are destructive in terms of market value. Moreover, while providing a broader scope of assurance and having a professional accountant as the assurance provider enhance the value relevance of environmental reporting of the whole sample, this is unlikely to be the case for ESI firms. In particular, a higher level of environmental disclosure is financially rewarded by market participants for ESI firms that provide a higher level of assurance.

The study provides a better understanding of the circumstances under which market participants assign value to voluntary environmental information disclosed by companies operating in ESI. It also provides insights into the value added to different characteristics inherent in the quality of assurance provided with regard to environmental disclosure.

The study indicates that the institutional context of the relationship between the firm and its shareholders influence the value obtained from assurance. Results provide value insights regarding cultural and legal dimensions of environmental reporting.

The study extends the prior literature on the capital market benefits of voluntary assurance practices by focusing on the French legal environment. France can be considered as a new institutional context that has been little addressed by the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to review and identify changes in systems of external examinations in Denmark, the UK and Norway.

Comparative analysis of studies, reviews and documents concerning the purpose and functioning of systems of external examination in three selected countries.

The paper concludes that systems of external examinations are being transformed from a focus on student performance to a focus on programme quality and coherence in all three countries studied.

The paper shows that older and newer forms of quality assurance are becoming more integrated with the potential of creating quality assurance procedures addressing teaching and learning issues more directly.

Much attention has been given to newer forms of external quality assurance schemes. More traditional forms of quality assurance have, as a consequence, received less attention although they may still provide benefits to higher education.