Key research themes
1. How can audit quality be comprehensively defined and measured through integrated evaluation models?
Audit quality remains a multifaceted and often nebulous concept due to different stakeholder perspectives, definitions, and measurement approaches. This research theme focuses on developing comprehensive audit quality frameworks and modeling approaches that integrate technical, service, and organizational attributes to provide actionable, measurable assessments of audit performance. Such integrative models help address inconsistencies in audit quality definitions, capture diverse quality dimensions, and enable standardized, objective evaluations vital for improving audit effectiveness and enhancing stakeholder trust.
2. What are the critical organizational and individual factors influencing internal audit effectiveness?
Internal audit effectiveness (IAE) is pivotal for enhancing governance, risk management, and control within organizations. This research theme concentrates on identifying, conceptualizing, and empirically validating latent factors and constructs—organizational characteristics, auditor competencies, resource allocation, relationships, coordination, and motivation—that drive or impede IAE. Understanding these factors offers internal audit functions actionable insights to optimize performance, align audits with strategic objectives, and strengthen assurance for stakeholders.
3. How can emerging technologies like process mining and business process modeling enhance audit performance analysis and operational effectiveness?
This research theme investigates the integration of advanced IT-driven analytical techniques—particularly process mining and business process modeling (BPM)—into auditing practices to improve audit performance, transparency, and operational efficiency. By leveraging detailed event logs, real-time monitoring, and formalized business process frameworks, auditors can shift from traditional sample-based checks to continuous, comprehensive audits, support requirements elicitation for audit systems, and detect deviations or inefficiencies more effectively.