Perceptions about turnover in the internal audit activity: an overview of the Brazilian context

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to present and discuss a general overview about the level of turnover through the perception of internal audit professionals in the Brazilian context.
 Methodology: The research was carried out through an applied survey with 140 internal audit professionals, whose counts were collected through LinkedIn. The professionals evaluated mainly work in large organizations, 61.4% are former external auditors who made the career change mainly because their previous career did not have a balance between personal and professional life, and 94% understood that the exchange generated better quality of life.
 Results: A low turnover rate was observed among the participating professionals. Among the main factors related to turnover are the receipt of proposals of work in other organizations for the audit experience, as well as others within the own organization that act. On a scale of 1 to 10 participants define their quality of life as 6.7 and if they say they value the function.
 Contributions of the Study: This paper contributes with the literature advancing the discussion about turnover and quality of life to the branch of internal audit and brings the discussion to the Brazilian context. The work also contributes to the discussion about the change of career from external auditor to internal auditor, with previous work focusing on the turnover of internal audit activity, and those who study turnover in external audit do not assess the fate of professionals, presenting a gap to be fulfilled in theory.