Internal audit plays a critical role in maintaining corporate governance. This study examines factors that lead into non-accounting business professionals’ willingness to work in the internal audit function. This is an effort to provide guidance to the internal audit profession on how to better recruit students and non-accounting business professionals into internal audit roles.
Bartlett, Geoffrey D., J. Kremin, K. K. Saunders, D. A. Wood.2017. “Factors Influencing Recruitment of Non-Accounting Business Professionals into Internal Auditing”. Behavioral Research in Accounting 29.1 (2017): 119.
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This study indicates that increasing the frequency of informal communication between the audit committee and the audit team can positively impact reporting quality, but auditors need to be sensitized to how management may exhibit undue influence and its potential to undermine audit committee effectiveness. From a practical standpoint, this study indicates that failing to consider specific expectations communicated by the audit committee can have severe consequences.
Brown, J. O. and V. K. Popova. 2016. The Interplay of Management Incentives and Audit Committee Communication on Auditor Judgment. Behavioral Research in Accounting 28 (1): 27-40.
This paper provides evidence indicating that audit committee members recognize the potentially harmful effects of a manager-auditor relationship on auditor independence. It also supplies insight into the audit committee’s auditor selection and audit quality assessment process.
Abbott, L. J. V. L. Brown and J. L. Higgs. 2016. The Effects of Prior Manager-Auditor Affiliation and PCAOB Inspection Reports on Audit Committee Members’ Auditor Recommendations. Behavioral Research in Accounting 28 (1): 1-14.
This study is the first to establish IAF characteristics as separate, distinct constructs that act jointly in creating IAF quality; therefore, it contributes to the overall understanding of IAF quality and the determinants of the IAF as an effective internally based financial reporting monitor.
Abbott, L. J., B. Daugherty, S. Parker and G. F. Peters. 2016. Internal Audit Quality and Financial Reporting Quality: The Joint Importance of Independence and Competence. Journal of Accounting Research 54 (1): 3-40.
The findings of this paper have significant policy implications and are important to shareholders. While regulators have set rules to improve audit committee effectiveness, the reforms may not change the substantive effectiveness in certain cases, one case being that the CEO has too much power. The authors provide empirical evidence showing that the negative association between audit committee financial expertise and internal control weaknesses becomes weak when the CEO is powerful. The result implies requiring audit committee to possess certain characteristics, such as financial expertise and fully independence, may not be sufficient to strengthen the underlying substance of monitoring effectiveness. The findings are consistent with evidences from survey and interview studies that argue top management ultimately determine the effectiveness of audit committee. The authors also show a powerful CEO can affect the substantive effectiveness even though he/she is prohibited from selecting audit committee members under the SOX Act. Finally, the findings raise concerns over the common practice of CEO duality in the U.S. A CEO, being the chairman of the board at the same time, can adversely affect audit committee effectiveness.
Lisic, L. L., T. L. Neal, I. X. Zhang, and Y. Zhang. 2016. CEO Power, Internal Control Quality, and Audit Committee Effectiveness in Substance versus in Form. Contemporary Accounting Research 33 (3): 1199–1237.
The results of this study are important to consider when examining the effects of the audit committee on managers’ judgments. This study identifies the changes to the reporting environment stemming from the implementation of SOX, particularly with respect to communications between auditors and the audit committee and the authority and responsibility of the audit committee. This study adds insight to prior archival research that suggests that audit committees considered to be effective are associated with greater financial reporting quality. Further, these findings suggest that managers act as if auditors and audit committees that jointly resist management pressures to engage in aggressive reporting play important roles in ensuring high financial reporting quality.
Brown-Liburd, H., A. Wright and V. Zamora. 2016. Managers’ Strategic Reporting Judgments in Audit Negotiations. Auditing, A Journal of Practice and Theory 35 (2): 47-64.
The results from this study highlight the complexity of assurance-related decisions and the interplay between macro-level and micro-level institutional factors. The results also reveal the diversified nature of this particular emerging assurance market, which should prove to be a rich source of future research.
Zhou, S., R. Simnett, and W. J. Green. 2016. Assuring a New Market: the Interplay between Country-Level and Company-Level Factors on the Demand for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Information Assurance and the Choice of Assurance Provider. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. 35 (3): 141-168.
Preserving an image of effective monitoring can be just as important as preserving effective monitoring itself. AC-member ineffectiveness due to financial reporting increases the likelihood of AC turnover for both the AC-members who served during the events precipitating the financial reporting failure as well as the “tainted” AC-members (even if they were not serving as AC-members when the events precipitating the financial reporting failure occurred). This result shows that shareholders may take bold and visible actions to “clean house” when such financial reporting failures are revealed. Regarding individual characteristics, under normal circumstances characteristics of an AC-member’s potential ineffectiveness such as multiple board commitments may actually be seen as desirable by shareholders perhaps signaling the quality of the AC-member. However, when shareholder dissent increases these individual characteristics of an AC-member’s potential ineffectiveness increases the likelihood of turnover for that particular AC-members but does not “taint” the other AC-members. That is, characteristics once viewed as slightly positive for specific AC-members become negatives when shareholder dissent increases.
Kachelmeier, S. J., S. J. Rasmussen, and J. J. Schmidt. 2016. When Do Ineffective Audit Committee Members Experience Turnover?. Contemporary Accounting Review 33 (1): 228-260.
This study contributes to the accounting landscape in many different ways. First, the results suggest that, through voting and differentiating between AC and non-AC directors, shareholders can influence the AC’s oversight over financial reporting. Second, the study complements previous research on similar topics by showing that dissatisfaction with AC members is also associated with subsequent turnover of accounting financial experts and that low auditor ratification and AC votes are both associated with a reduction in auditor-provided tax services. Finally, the results show that going forward all studies examining the efficacy of shareholder votes should separately consider staggered and non-staggered boards.
Gal-Or, R., Hoitash, R., and Hoitash U. 2016. The Efficacy of Shareholder Voting in Staggered and Non-Staggered Boards: The Case of Audit Committee Elections. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory 35 (2): 73-95.
This study offers insights into why internal auditing is experiencing a shortage of qualified job candidates and offers a potential solution to the problem. The authors find that external auditors have negative perceptions about internal auditing, and these negative perceptions are associated with a (1) decreased desire to apply for internal auditing positions, (2) lower likelihood of recommending an in-house internal auditing career to high-performing students, and (3) higher likelihood of recommending an in-house internal auditing career to mediocre students. Internal auditors can try solving this problem by improving perceptions about internal auditing via a media campaign that raises awareness about the true internal audit career path.
Bartlett, G.D., J. Kremin, K.K. Saunders, and D.A. Wood. 2016. Attracting Applicants for In-House and Outsourced Internal Audit Positions: Views from External Auditors. Accounting Horizons 30 (1): 143-156.