Abstract
The modern business world is characterized by complexity and competition which companies have to face in order to survive and prosper beyond. The internal audit function of an enterprise helps to ensure the proper implementation of the decisions of the General Assembly and the Board of Directors, relating to the operation and of a company. The modern internal auditor has to ensure that the corporate decisions are implemented. Moreover, the modern internal auditor should ensure the implementation of laws by a company, the reduction of risks which a company can face at the lowest possible level, the implementation of the corporate governance rules and the proper functioning of the internal control systems.The subject of the PhD dissertation is the quality of internal auditing. The research examines the factors affecting the quality of internal auditing. The contribution of the internal audit quality on the effectiveness of the business is immeasurable. The scientific scope of internal au ...
The modern business world is characterized by complexity and competition which companies have to face in order to survive and prosper beyond. The internal audit function of an enterprise helps to ensure the proper implementation of the decisions of the General Assembly and the Board of Directors, relating to the operation and of a company. The modern internal auditor has to ensure that the corporate decisions are implemented. Moreover, the modern internal auditor should ensure the implementation of laws by a company, the reduction of risks which a company can face at the lowest possible level, the implementation of the corporate governance rules and the proper functioning of the internal control systems.The subject of the PhD dissertation is the quality of internal auditing. The research examines the factors affecting the quality of internal auditing. The contribution of the internal audit quality on the effectiveness of the business is immeasurable. The scientific scope of internal auditing has not been studied enough in Greece. This kind of research is innovative and it deals with a field of science with importance for a business. Specifically, the research deals with those quality elements which lead to the effectiveness of internal controls in accordance with the model COSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organization’s). The sample of our research is the companies that are listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. Specifically, the sample consists of the industries of Industrial Products & Services, Food & Beverage and Travel and Leisure.The PhD dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part is theoretical and the second part is the research. The first part presents the basic concepts of internal auditing, the institutional framework of internal auditing, the contribution of internal auditing to the quality management strategy, the results of the lack of internal audit quality, the risks that can face a firm and the modern developments of internal auditing. The modern developments in internal auditing include update issues. These issues have been studied very little in Greece and in other countries. Some issues are the International Financial Reporting Standards, the model of Balanced Scorecard, Total Quality Management, Human Resource Management, Technology, Environmental Protection and Quality Assurance Systems (ISO). These matters are examined not in isolation, but in relation to internal auditing.The second part of the PhD dissertation contains the research. Specifically, this section includes the research, the previous studies in relation with the quality of internal auditing, the importance of internal audit quality, the sample of the survey, the reasons for selecting the sample, the goals of the research, the innovation of it and the research methodology. The research methodology includes the categorization of the research, the reasons for choosing the model COSO, the reasons for selecting specific types of questions, the principles of questionnaire design and the statistical analysis. Finally, it is presented the response rate of the research and the results of it. The results are presented by industry for the 35 questions of the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics have been presented for a specific type of questions. Finally, correlations between the questions have been examined using the program of SPSS.The contribution of internal audit quality has greatly increased in the latest years because of the difficult economic conditions prevailing in Greece. The internal auditing can contribute decisively to the improvement of the competitiveness of the Greek businesses and to the Greek economy as a whole. The improvement of the competitiveness of Greek businesses can help Greece get out from the economic crisis. The Greek companies should be improved in order to increase their competitiveness.
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