THE INFLUENCE OF CORPORATION GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE ON INTERNAL CONTROL AUDIT REPORT LAG: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

This paper examines whether corporation governance structure has influence on internal audit report lag (IARL). The study studies a sample of 1244 observations from Year 2008 to Year 2011, obtained from Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China. Regression analysis indicates that firms, with fewer directors but more supervisors and members in audit committees as well as less frequent supervisory board meeting, are more likely to reduce IARL. In contrast, this study also demonstrates factors such as the independence of board of supervisors and board of directors, the meeting frequency of board of directors and duality of CEO, hardly exert influence on the IARL. The contribution of this paper is mainly to empirically analyze the influence of corporation governance structure on IARL to improve the timeliness of internal control information disclosure.