Internal Auditors’ Contribution to Good Corporate Governance. An Empirical Analysis for the One-Tier Governance System with a Focus on the Relationship between Internal Audit Function and Audit Committee

The effectiveness and efficiency of the internal corporate governance structure depends on different governance bodies within the organization. As crucial parts of good governance they provide constituting, monitoring and controlling tasks concerning the risk management and internal control system. Hence, these corporate governance mechanisms include the internal control function (IAF) resp. the members of the internal auditing (IA) and the audit committee (AC) that supervise the risk management and internal control system. Our study explores empirically what internal auditors perceive as the IAF's contribution to these aspects of corporate governance. Based on a dataset of 550 responses from U.S. internal auditors, our results suggest that IA's self-perception is characterized as a central element of the governance structure. A significant interaction between the IAF and the AC is positively linked with the efficiency and effectiveness of the governance processes, internal controls and risk management