The adoption of risk based internal auditing in developing countries

Abstract

The study investigated the adoption of Risk Based Internal Audit in Ghana, the factors that influence the adoption or non adoption of Risk Based Internal Audit amongst Ghanaian Companies. The involvement of internal auditors in risk assessment was also assessed in the context of Enterprise Risk Management. The study employed Pearson’s chisquare test of independence model at a p-value of 0.05. It was observed that risk basedapproach to internal auditing is widely used amongst Ghana’s Club 100 companies, especially amongst financial, Telecommunications, and Manufacturing companies. The study again foundout that, there is high involvement of IA in risk management which translated to the use of riskbased approaches in planning annual audits. Regulation the study observed is not a driver ofadoption of RBIA in Ghana. The main factor that motivated the adoption of RBIA was, RBIA helped these organizations to focus on high risks priority areas.