English

George Drogalas,Konstantinos Arampatzis,Theofanis Karagiorgos

doi:10.5897/jat2015.0182

Abstract

The current study investigates the specific factors associated with internal audit effectiveness in the Greek business environment. Empirical evidence was collected by means of a mailed survey. Factor Analysis and regression analysis are used in order to illustrate the gathered information. The findings indicate that the main factors affecting internal audit effectiveness are: (1) quality of internal audit, (2) competence of internal audit team, (3) independence of internal audit and (4) management support. The results also reveal that independence of internal audit is the foundation of internal audit effectiveness, as it is the most crucial factor in our model. Finally, the paper concludes that internal audit is of major importance for Greek business. Key words: Internal audit, Auditing, effectiveness of internal audit, Accounting, Greece.

Highlights

Technological, political, regulatory, and economic changes that have occurred during the last decades, have significantly affected basic functions and operations of companies (Burnaby and Hass, 2011)
Based on the public sector of Ethiopia, the findings indicate that internal audit effectiveness is affected by the internal audit quality, along with the support of management, the organization environment and the characteristics of the organization
In contrast to the above, the results indicate that there is no correlation between the corporate governance structures and the perceived quality of internal audit

Summary

Introduction

Technological, political, regulatory, and economic changes that have occurred during the last decades, have significantly affected basic functions and operations of companies (Burnaby and Hass, 2011). In this respect, the rise of business risks, the economic instability and the important increase of financial fraud scandals have necessitated the use of internal audit for companies (Bekiaris et al, 2013; Vinary and Skaerbaek; 2014; Tsipouridou and Spathis, 2014; Gbadago, 2015). Factors and measurement of internal audit‟s effectiveness have been used differently by the researchers (Arena and Azzone, 2009) and until now, there is no consensus regarding the most appropriate framework for internal audit‟s effectiveness (Endaya and Hanefah, 2013). This article is an attempt to fill this literature gap

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion