Academic research

Building and developing academic relations

As the professional body for internal auditing across all sectors, the Institute of Internal Auditors is committed to encouraging, supporting and disseminating academic research. We are interested in progressing professional practice in areas that impact on the delivery of effective internal audit services, including corporate governance, risk management and control, assurance, corporate social responsibility and IT audit.

We support various academic events during the year and wish over time to provide more resources here for academics and for practitioners who are interested in how the theoretical underpinnings of our profession are being developed.  If you are interested in being kept in touch with these matters, send an email to the Institute by clicking here.

Initially, we should like to draw the following items to your attention:

 

Calls for Papers!

2009 7th European Academic Conference on Internal Audit and Corporate Governance  

The IIA - UK and Ireland has supported the European Academic Conference on Internal Audit and Corporate Governance for several years. In 2009 this will be held at Cass Business School in London on 15 to 17 April.  
500 word abstracts are due by 30 January 2009 - to be sent to the academic chair, Dr Rob Melville
See the document below for full details.
2009 4th IT Auditing Research Symposium
The IIA's International Advanced Technology Committee (ATC) and The IIA Research Foundation (IIARF) are pleased to announce the fourth IT Auditing Research Symposium, to be held in 2009. Proposals are due February 6, 2009.   For more information, click here.


 
Previous research projects
Global Academic Conference 2008
The European Academic Conference became a global conference in 2008 and it was held in April at The Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Global Academic Conference (GAC) was a huge success with papers presented from 10 countries.

Francis Nicholson, Education Director, attended to represent the Institute. His report of the conference can be accessed by clicking here   Report from 2008 Academic Conference .

Copies of all the papers presented at the conference can be found on Auditing.nl, a web site launched by Erasmus University and Auditing & Consulting Services as a part of their post-master study in internal/ operational auditing. To access the papers, you will need to register on the site. Click here for the site. 

Research in Occupational Standards for Internal Auditing

The IIA - UK and Ireland conducted research into National Occupational Standards and their potential for education and training in internal auditing. Standards currently exist and have been used for National Vocational Qualifications and we were interested in determining whether there is value in reviewing, revising and possibly extending them. 

Victoria University, NZ and Exeter University, UK - Research Project

The Institute supported an academic research project that is jointly run by Victoria University New Zealand and Exeter University. The team is seeking to understand internal auditors’ views about the roles and responsibilities of external auditors with regard to the audit of financial statements of listed companies. A random selection of members were sent a letter from the university and asked to spare a few moments of their time to complete the accompanying questionnaire. We have agreed with the research team that the results will be published on our website.

Are you ethical?

One of our colleagues based currently in the Netherlands is carrying out doctoral research on the role of internal audit in the ethical perspectives in organisations. He has developed a survey of the work that internal auditors perform related to ethical issues and including some questions that test your ethics.
The Third IT Auditing Research Symposium
The Global IIA Research Foundation and The IIA's Advanced Technology Committee hosted the 3rd IT Audit Research symposium for scholars, researchers, educators, and practitioners from around the world in July 2008. The purpose of the symposium was to discuss potential solutions for significant IT audit issues. The topics discussed included:
    • XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) - The Impact on Assurance, New Challenges for the Audit Profession.
    • Applying usability testing to evaluate information technology control of in-house developed software applications.
    • Fraud Interviewing Techniques for Internal IT Auditors.