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The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal auditing as the pandemic forced individual internal auditors and audit teams to conduct the work remotely.

Five in-depth semi-structured interviews of internal audit experts that work in German retail and manufacturing industry were conducted between February and April 2021.

The authors find that the importance of audit technologies did not change significantly due to the pandemic, as audit technologies were already an integral part of internal audits. Interestingly, the transition to remote audits occurred with remarkable speed and efficiency. The presence of well-functioning information and communication technologies emerges as a critical facilitator for effective remote communication, collaboration and data exchange. However, audit technologies can only partially replace physical on-site examinations and human interaction. The main challenges of remote audits are related to the auditing of non-digitalized processes and the inherent limitations of auditee interviews and interactions.

The authors' interview approach does not allow to cover variations between industries and between countries. While internal audit experts provided notably consistent responses during the interviews, acknowledging that the sample size is very small is important.

The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a catalyst for increased digitalization and technology adoption within the realm of internal auditing. A hybrid approach combining the benefits of on-site and remote audits is expected to prevail in the future.

The paper is among the first to document the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the work of internal auditing using field-based research methods.

This study aims to examine the relationship between internal and external factors and job satisfaction, and between job satisfaction and auditors’ performance.

This research used deductive approach. Data was gathered from 83 auditors in the Saudi Organisation for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) database. By implementing the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique, the suggested hypotheses were examined.

The results show that internal factors, i.e., achievement, advancement, recognition and growth, significantly impact job satisfaction. Subsequently, the external factors, i.e., company policies, relationship with a peer and relationship with supervisor, significantly impact job satisfaction. In contrast, work security has no relationship with job satisfaction. Furthermore, job satisfaction is a significant driver for auditors' performance.

This research sheds light on the relationships between internal and external factors, job satisfaction and auditors' performance in the Saudi context. It would be interesting to investigate these relationships in a different setting, such as a different country, time or industry. Future studies should broaden the sample frame to include different types of employees to obtain more generalisable results.

This study may help managers of auditing departments formulate appropriate strategies and design effective programs to increase the level of job satisfaction between auditors by enhancing such factors, which will lead to improving the auditors' performance.

This research provide an empirical evidence to support the theoretical assumptions of Herzberg's which is much needed.

While the three lines model (TLM) provides an organizational structure to execute risk and control duties, research and practice show limitations in the model's implementation. These limitations result in governance issues. Such issues, together with control weaknesses, could be addressed by leveraging properties of distribution, transparency, and immutability of blockchain technology. To this end, in this paper the authors propose a conceptual control framework based on blockchain technology to augment control practice.

The design of the resulting blockchain-based control framework (BBCF) and its prototype, based on the design science research methodology (DSRM), is presented and discussed in terms of the potential impact in the context of the identified problems within the TLM.

One potential outcome of BBCF could be to redefine the scope and boundaries of some of the activities in audit and control practices from a more static to a more dynamic and prospective role. In a larger context of improving governance practices, the BBCF could set the path for a more inclusive and participatory interaction between the different governance actors of an organization.

However, this assumes that blockchain is more widely adopted despite its complexity and rigidity.

BBCF covering both a conceptual model design and a reference implementation provides an innovation in audit and control. BBCF could include all relevant stakeholders who have an interest in corporate governance and control activities, including the regulators.

The contribution intends to serve both as a starting point for discussing the evolution of audit and control practice based on blockchain technology, as well as an initial actionable prototype for experimentation and further development.

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.

This paper aims to explore how the phenomena of corruption and fraud in the public sector have been portrayed in the literature using the Audit Society Framework (Power, 1997).

The authors conducted a structured literature review (Massaro et al., 2016) to unveil relevant literature in the area of corruption and fraud in the public sector.

Results highlight that the literature using “The Audit Society” theory is still scant. Notwithstanding the call for a more decisive role of auditors in fighting corruption and fraud, much is still to be discovered about consequences of auditing and what “good quality” is.

The main limitation is that only literature in English has been included.

This paper helps practitioners and policymakers to take and implement informed decisions with regards to the fight against fraud and corruption.

In calling for more research in the domain of audit, fraud and corruption in the public sector, this paper promotes a higher focus of society on public interest and the common good.

This paper investigates one part of The Audit Society related to corruption and fraud, topics that are still very underdeveloped and unexplored by researchers. From the findings the authors suggest possible new avenues for further research.

In developing countries, how risk management technologies influence management accounting and control (MAC) practices is under-researched. By drawing on insights from institutional studies, this study aims to examine the multiple institutional pressures surrounding an entity and influencing its risk-based management control (RBC) system – that is, how RBC appears in an emerging market attributed to institutional multiplicity.

The authors used qualitative case study research methods to collect empirical evidence from a privately owned Egyptian insurance company.

The authors observed that in the transformation to risk-based controls, especially in socio-political settings such as Egypt, changes in MAC systems were consistent with the shifts in the institutional context. Along with changes in the institutional environment, the case company sought to configure its MAC system to be more risk-based to achieve its strategic goals effectively and maintain its sustainability.

This research provides a fuller view of risk-based management controls based on the social, professional and political perspectives central to the examined institutional environment. Moreover, unlike early studies that reported resistance to RBC, this case reveals the institutional dynamics contributing to the successful implementation of RBC in an emerging market.

This paper investigates the relationship between risk management practices and potential fraudulent financial reporting in Malaysia by considering recent regulatory reforms of the Malaysian government on risk management practices.

The sample of this study was based on 257 firm-year observations during the 2012–2017 period. This study employed panel-least square regressions with period fixed effects.

This study found a significant association between risk management activities in the disclosure and potential fraudulent financial reporting. Nevertheless, this study found there is insignificant effect of the risk-management committee in reducing potential of fraudulent financial reporting.

This study is a pioneer research that relates firms’ risk management practices with potential fraudulent financial reporting measured by F-score. Thus, this study provides an insight to regulators on the extent of risk-management practices in deterring potential fraudulent financial reporting which can be used as an input for greater enforcement of risk-management regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and investigate how intensified regulatory requirements related to outsourcing have influenced and changed the outsourcing activities of German financial institutions.

The study involved interviewing 11 outsourcing experts in the German financial sector, including four of the five largest banks in Germany. In coding and analysing the collected data, this study adopted the approach of a qualitative content analysis framework.

The study found that the revised legal requirements have had a significant and potentially negative impact on the efficiency of outsourcing, leading to a necessity for German financial institutions to internally realign their outsourcing managements. The study further revealed practical realigned methods German financial institutions executed to meet the legal requirements.

The impact, meaning and relevance of legal requirements in the outsourcing environment of German financial institutions has been relatively under-researched from a qualitative perspective and focused on other primary fields of investigation like outsourcing decisions and outcomes. This study has, by adopting a qualitative approach, addressed the identified gap by providing first-hand insights and new knowledge.