The Staff Capacity of the Internal Audit Function of German Corporations^

Ulfert Gronewold / Andre Heerlein

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The Staff Capacity of the Internal Audit Function of German Corporations Ulfert Gronewold Ruhr University Bochum Andre Heerlein University of Potsdam ABSTRACT: This study explores determinants of large German corporations’ internal audit function size, controlling for possible outsourcing of internal audit workforce. Analyses are based on survey data from chief internal audit executives of 121 companies, representing a large proportion of the German non-financial-service and non-public-sector companies that maintain an internal audit function. The instrument was developed in a multi-stage process, which among other steps involved semi-structured expert interviews. Our multivariate regression model has high explanatory power, accounting for 80 percent of the variance in internal audit function size. Results highlight that company size is the major driver of internal audit function size, and that the significance of the capital markets for the company is another positive driver. More notably, we document that the task range of different audit tasks to cover is another important driver of internal audit function size, as is the spatial decentralization of the internal audit function. Key Words: Internal Audit Function Size, Staff Capacity, Internal Audit Characteristics. INTRODUCTION This paper addresses the size of the internal audit function of German corporations as measured by its staff capacity. The internal audit function is ...

Informations

• Publié par: Udda
• Nombre de lectures: 17
• Langue: English

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