Wright, Ronald MacEwan (2009) Internal Audit, Internal Control and Organizational Culture. PhD thesis, Vcitoria University.

Abstract

For over a century the role of the internal auditor has been recognized as a special role within organizations that provided important support to the organization. The importance of this support has been growing over the century. In particular internal audit is considered to encompass the audit of both operational activities as well as purely financial activities. During the last few years there has been a growing interest in organizational culture. The purpose of this study is to look at the organizational culture of organizations and their internal audit operations from the perspective of operational audit. The study will use an organizational cultural model to see if operational internal audit has identical cultural to the organization, and if not what differences exist, and how these differences might be seen to mean that the operational internal audit with a particular cultural profile better achieves its goals, and assists the organization as a result. In conducting this study, because of the need for richer in depth data than could be achieved with a survey analysis, a multiple case approach has been taken. Three organizations within the same economic sector were examined to see how culture affected their use of operational internal audit, and how the operational internal audit responded. The results suggest that the operational internal audit of organizations generally have their own cultural orientation, and these orientations are independent of the organizations’ own cultural orientations. Further the results suggest that operational internal auditors with a strong cultural orientation towards rules and procedures will better serve their organizations.

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