IT Governance Frameworks and their Impact on the Efficiency of External Audits: Evidence from Companies When Audit Client Adoption

Abstract

This research examines the effect of Information Technology (IT) governance through audit clients on external auditing efficiency. To analyze the auditing efficiency of these contracts and to test the hypotheses that the Authors have set for this study, The study seeks to cover the research gap that the current literature has not adequately addressed regarding the impact of IT governance on the efficiency of external audits, concerning audit clients and giving priority to companies that can conduct audits quickly and cost-effectively, the Authors conducted a study of 30 audit contracts that were carried out by two auditing firms operating in Syria as an experiment and considered Syria adopts the IT governance framework in the Mediterranean basin and used data envelopment analysis to measure the auditing efficiency of these contracts. Furthermore, survey questionnaires were given to the audited companies to determine the extent of their compliance with IT governance, based on some of the principles of the Qubit 5 model. The data was analyzed, and the hypotheses were tested using regression analysis by employing SPSS software. The study establishes a positive correlation between the use of IT governance by audit clients and external audit efficiency based on two efficiency measures, CRS and VRS.

Keywords: auditing, COBIT 5, information technology, IT governance