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This study investigates internal control implementation contribution to quality management at higher education institutions (HEIs).

This study employed a qualitative method by conducting semi-structured interviews. The research respondents (interviewees) consisted of internal auditors, HEI management members and accreditation assessors of Indonesian HEIs. A total of 15 respondents were successfully interviewed to collect the data; 12 were from different HEIs, and 3 were from the HEI accreditation board.

This study deduced that internal control implementation could contribute to HEI quality management and improvement if integrated with other control policies, such as internal quality assurance, performance measurement systems and performance-based budgeting. By doing so, internal control corroborates total quality management (TQM) implementation within HEIs since it promotes employee empowerment and supervision, reduces budget wastage, increases the achievement of budget targets on output and outcome of programs and activities, enhances strategic and integrated system practices, provides reliable information for better decision-making, and promotes effective communication and coordination and good leadership culture.

The current study presents beneficial suggestions for HEI management on how internal control contributes to quality management at HEIs.

As suggested by Chalmers et al. (2019), most studies related to internal control were conducted in profit-oriented organisation settings, i.e. companies, and focused on their impact on economic aspects, such as profitability, cost efficiency and fraud mitigation. Meanwhile, internal control-related studies in the context of non-profit-oriented organisations, such as HEIs, and their role in non-economic aspects, in this case, the quality management in HEIs, is still lacking.

This study aims to assess the effect of material internal control weaknesses (MICW) on the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure.

A total number of 197 firms were assessed in this study during 2014–2021. Two measures were used for MICW. First, the number of existing MICW was assessed in independent auditors’ reports. In Iran, the maximum number of weaknesses is 13. Second, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used as a dummy variable, 1 for a firm with MICW and otherwise 0. Moreover, the scoring (0 or 1) method was used to measure the level of future-oriented disclosure of 13 indicators.

The findings showed that institutional ownership and managerial ownership have a significant positive effect on future-oriented disclosure, whereas the MICW have a significant negative effect on future-oriented disclosure. In addition, MICW played a moderator role in the relationship between ownership structures and future-oriented disclosure. The robustness checks confirmed the results.

As the studies conducted on future-oriented disclosure and the contributing factors are limited, and also the effect of MICW on future-oriented disclosure is not explored, the present findings can show the importance of the study, and fill the gap in this field. This study offers theoretical and practical implications to drive policymakers and managers to the effectiveness of internal control and future-oriented transparency.

This study aims to evaluate the moderating impact of corporate governance on the relationship between internal control mechanisms and financial performance.

The study employs a structured questionnaire to collect data from 250 top managers of rural banks in the capital of Ghana. Cronbach alpha value and Fornell-Larcker tests were performed to assess the reliability and validity of the data used. The study adopted a partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM).

The results show that internal control and corporate governance both have a direct positive and significant impact on financial performance. Furthermore, the interaction of internal control and corporate governance also has a positive and significant impact on financial performance, thus confirming the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between internal control mechanisms and financial performance.

This implies that organizations need to strengthen their corporate governance procedures to increase the efficiency of their internal control systems, which would ultimately lead to an improvement in their financial performance.

The present study innovates by assessing the moderating role of corporate governance in the nexus between internal control mechanisms and financial performance. This moderating effect assessment implies that corporate governance may not only affect the technical implementation of the internal control structures but will subsequently make an impact on the overall performance of the organization.

This study aims to examine the effect of professional commitment, commitment to ethics, internal locus of control and emotional intelligence on the ability to detect fraud through reduced audit quality behaviors.

The analysis unit is the internal auditor in internal control unit at state Islamic religious higher education in Indonesia. Data processing used covariance-based structural equation modeling using Lisrel Software and the Sobel test to verify the direct and indirect effects.

This study found empirical evidence that professional commitment and emotional intelligence positively impact the ability to detect fraud. Commitment to ethics and emotional intelligence has a negative effect on reduced audit quality behaviors. Furthermore, this study also provides that commitment to ethics and emotional intelligence indirectly impacts on the ability to detect fraud through reduced audit quality behaviors.

The organization periodically monitors auditors’ behaviors, especially reduced audit quality behaviors, during the audit process and encourages regulators to formulate policies related to increasing the ability to detect fraud.

This study provides knowledge regarding the driving force of internal auditors to mitigate reduced audit quality behaviors and increase the ability to detect fraud.

Motivated to know more about the internal means through which accountability for sustainability takes shape within organisations (in what ways and by whom), this paper aims to explore how accountability for sustainability is constructed within an organisation during a process of establishing a control system for sustainability.

This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach of a decentralised industrial group, operating mainly in Scandinavia, between 2017 and 2020. Both primary and secondary data are used (e.g. document analyses, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and site visits) to inform the findings and analysis.

The findings reveal a multi-faceted path towards accountability for sustainability that involves several concerns and priorities at organisational and individual levels, resulting in a separate sustainability control systems within each subsidiary company. Although hierarchical structures for accountability exist, socialising accountability activities are needed to (further) mobilise sustainable accounts.

Successful sustainable control systems require employees making sense of formalised accountability instruments (e.g. policies and procedures) to establish their roles and responsibilities in organisations.

This paper proposes socialisation processes as important for driving forward sustainability solutions.

This study elaborates on the internal accountability dynamic for the construction of sustainable accounts. Its novelty is built upon the interaction of hierarchical and socialising accountability forms as necessary for establishing a control system for sustainability. It furthermore illustrates the relationship between the external and internal pathways of accountability.

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.

This study aims to explore the effectiveness and reliability of the performance of internal auditor by the stakeholders for their decision making. The absence of rules and regulations generates the debate that the non-standard reporting of the assessment of the internal controls system’s assessment by internal auditor and reliance by the external auditor.

The study used the mixed-method (triangulation) for the analysis quantitative data was used for regression with Smart PLS 3.2.8, and the qualitative data was used to prove and strengthen the results. The data is collected for five IVs (Objectivity of IAF, Work Performance, Competence, Internal Control System’s Assessment and Sourcing of IAF) and their impact on two DVs (Effectiveness and Reliance). This study used five areas as the target audience (Internal Auditor, External Auditor, Professional bodies, Shareholders, SECP and SBP). A total of 150 respondents were approached and received a valid response of 98 respondents.

The study explores the positive relationship between Objectivity of IAF, Work Performance, Competence, Sourcing of IAF on Effectiveness and Reliance. Internal Control System’s Assessment having significant relation with Effectiveness and non-significant with reliance because the absence of rules makes it unreliable for stakeholders.

The study found that the system for reporting the internal control needs rules and regulations advancement on the immediate basis for the betterment and safeguard of stakeholders to avoid the events like WorldCom and ENRON.

During a pandemic, with businesses implementing social distancing protocols and work-from-home strategies, the use of continuous controls monitoring (CCM) may add value to the internal audit function. This study aims to examine the use of CCM technologies and the impact on the internal audit function during a pandemic.

This study adopted a case study approach for this study because it focuses on questions of “how” and “what.” Case studies provided an opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the phenomena being investigated. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. This study did not use sampling. Instead, multiple case studies were used for data collection.

Based on the findings, this study makes several contributions to the literature, for example, in health-care evidence suggests the pandemic has caused internal audit to focus on risk areas. Other industries, such as retail, have invested in CCM. However, in all cases, education and preparedness (or the lack thereof) appeared to significantly influence uptake of CCM. Organizations that made prior investments in CCM technologies experienced greater acceptance in the face of changing demands. Training in emerging technologies is a key competency in supporting audit operations in changing environments.

As the study was conducted with a small sample of cases, findings cannot be extrapolated nor generalized beyond the case study organizations.

This study found that several factors limit adoption, exploitation and further development of CCM technologies, such as lack of top management support, acceptance of CCM technologies and suitable education and training of internal audit staff.

This study addresses the issue of the value that CCM offers organizations and whether it is a silver bullet that the internal audit profession needs, particularly when physical access to organizations may be restricted. The COVID-19 pandemic placed considerable focus on digital access. Better IT systems and more data will allow organizations to better support employees, inform strategic and financial decisions and engage stakeholders. During the recovery phase, leveraging investments in CCM technologies will contribute to internal audits’ ability to help clients to manage organizational risk.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer relationship management (CRM) implementation affects internal capital allocation efficiency, the efficiency with which a firm allocates its capital across its business segments.

The authors use a statistical regression method to analyze a sample of 801 unique firms in the USA from COMPUSTAT and the Computer Intelligence database. This analysis examines the relation between CRM implementation and internal capital allocation efficiency and identifies the conditions under which firms benefit more from CRM implementation. They also use instrumental variables (IVs) to address endogenous concerns with a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model.

The authors find that CRM implementation is positively related to internal capital allocation efficiency. The results are robust to the 2SLS analysis with IVs. This positive relation is more pronounced for firms with effective internal control and for those operating in highly competitive markets.

The research implies that that CRM can have a significant cross-functional effect on corporate financing and budgeting. This also suggests that when chief marketing officers plan marketing initiatives and implement CRM, they should communicate to chief financial officers not only the direct effect but also the indirect strategic benefits of such initiatives to a firm.

The authors reveal a previously overlooked aspect of marketing accountability by suggesting marketing’s impact on internal capital markets. They also enrich the body of literature on CRM benefits by showing a cross-functional benefit from marketing to finance (or capital allocation).

Digitalization is increasingly important for promoting authentic CSR practices. Firms with higher CSR levels motivate their employees to pursue their goals and demonstrate their social responsibility. However, the literature has not adequately examined how firm-level digitalization influences corporate sustainability from a governance perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how digitalization affects CSR disclosure, a key aspect of sustainability, at the firm level. Furthermore, this study also aims to investigate how governance factors, such as management power, internal control and minority shareholder pressure, moderate this effect.

This study employs a fixed effect model with robust standard errors to analyze how digitalization and CSR disclosure are related and how this relationship is moderated by governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The sample consists of 2,339 firms, of which 360 are SOEs and 1,979 are non-SOEs. To ensure robustness, this study has excluded the observations in 2020 to avoid the effects of COVID-19 and used an alternative measure of CSR disclosure based on the HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Furthermore, this study also explores the link in various corporate-level CSR settings.

The regression findings reveal that: First, Chinese A-share firms with higher digitalization levels disclose less CSR information. This finding holds for both SOEs and non-SOEs. Second, stronger management power has a negative moderating effect that weakens the link between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is mainly driven by SOEs. Third, internal control attenuates the negative association between firm digitalization and CSR disclosure, which is more pronounced in SOEs. Finally, minority shareholders exacerbate the negative relationship between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is more evident in non-SOEs. These results are robust to excluding the potential COVID effect and using an alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index measure.

Digitalization and sustainability have been widely discussed at a macro level, but their relationship at a micro level has been largely overlooked. Moreover, there is hardly any evidence on how governance heterogeneity affects this relationship in emerging economies, especially China. This paper addresses these issues by providing empirical evidence on how digital transformation influences CSR disclosure in China, a context where digitalization and CSR are both rapidly evolving. The paper also offers implications for both practitioners and policymakers to design appropriate digital strategies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.