The Influential Factors of Internal Audit Effectiveness: A Conceptual Model
Boris Tušek
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the influential factors of internal audit (IA) effectiveness and develops a conceptual model that provides a holistic view on the influential factors of IA effectiveness. The paper addressed an interesting topic and contributes to the existing literature on IA effectiveness. The paper is worth to be published in IJFS. However, the following comments will improve the paper further:
- Since the paper provides a SLR for the influential factors of internal audit effectiveness, I believe it is more suitable to change the title of the paper to be as follows: “The Influential Factors of Internal Audit Effectiveness: A Literature Review”.
- Page 2, second paragraph must be linked to the previous paragraph, this will make it more clear to the reader.
- Page 6, Figure 1 should be more clear. Replace it with a new high resolution image.
- Update the literature by including the recent article on IA effectiveness published in IJFS:
Ta, Thu Trang, and Thanh Nga Doan. 2022. "Factors Affecting Internal Audit Effectiveness: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam" International Journal of Financial Studies 10, no. 2: 37. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijfs10020037
- The literature review is limited to academic studies, which is within the scope of the current paper. However, in the conclusion section, I suggest to add this as a limitation of the study and make a recommendation for future research to consider the grey (or gray) literature.
Author Response
Comment 1:
Since the paper provides a SLR for the influential factors of internal audit effectiveness, I believe it is more suitable to change the title of the paper to be as follows: “The Influential Factors of Internal Audit Effectiveness: A Literature Review”.
Authors’ Response:
We thank the reviewer for suggesting this change. The title has been changed as follows: “The Influential Factors of Internal Audit Effectiveness: A Literature Review”.
Comment 2:
Page 2, second paragraph must be linked to the previous paragraph, this will make it more clear to the reader.
Authors’ Response:
We thank the reviewer for pointing out this point. The paragraphs have been linked together.
Comment 3:
Page 6, Figure 1 should be more clear. Replace it with a new high resolution image
Authors’ Response:
Thanks for pointing out this. Figure 1 replace with another high- resolution image, please refer to page 6.
Comment 5:
Update the literature by including the recent article on IA effectiveness published in IJFS: Ta, Thu Trang, and Thanh Nga Doan. 2022. "Factors Affecting Internal Audit Effectiveness: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam" International Journal of Financial Studies 10, no. 2: 37. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijfs10020037
Authors’ Response:
Thank you for bringing the above points to our attention. We have updated the literature and included the mentioned article, also include a summary of the article in table 1 in the appendix and add it to the references list.
Comment 6:
The literature review is limited to academic studies, which is within the scope of the current paper. However, in the conclusion section, I suggest to add this as a limitation of the study and make a recommendation for future research to consider the grey (or gray) literature
Authors’ Response:
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. The suggested limitation has been added to the conclusion section, please refer to page 19.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The value of this paper is that investigate internal audit effectiveness via a systematic literature review. The paper contains significant information adequate to justify publication. The paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources. It would be advisable the section of internal audit effectiveness to be enriched. I recommend also the authors to review former literature review (eg Nerantzidis, M., Pazarskis, M., Drogalas, G. and Galanis, S. (2022) Internal auditing in the public sector: a systematic literature review and future research agenda, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 34(2), pp. 189-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-02-2020-0015), and organized their paper accordingly. In the introduction the authors should present why, at this point, the literature review is important. Moreover in the methodology the authors should clarify why they have excluded Web of Science? Have they considered that the same article could be in research gate and emerald or science direct? If this is the case, how have you dealt with it? Have any duplications been found? if yes, how many?
The conclusion should be enriched.
The article still requires a minor revision that would support in bringing out its professional appeal and suit the publication requirements of the journal.
Thank you for the opportunity to review your work. I wish you good luck as you continue your research.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewer 2
The value of this paper is that investigate internal audit effectiveness via a systematic literature review. The paper contains significant information adequate to justify publication. The paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources. It would be advisable the section of internal audit effectiveness to be enriched. I recommend also the authors to review former literature review (eg Nerantzidis, M., Pazarskis, M., Drogalas, G. and Galanis, S. (2022) Internal auditing in the public sector: a systematic literature review and future research agenda, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 34(2), pp. 189-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-02-2020-0015), and organized their paper accordingly. In the introduction the authors should present why, at this point, the literature review is important. Moreover in the methodology the authors should clarify why they have excluded Web of Science? Have they considered that the same article could be in research gate and emerald or science direct? If this is the case, how have you dealt with it? Have any duplications been found? if yes, how many?
Comment 1:
The value of this paper is that investigate internal audit effectiveness via a systematic literature review. The paper contains significant information adequate to justify publication. The paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources.
Authors’ Response:
We appreciate the positive feedback from the reviewer.
Comment 2:
It would be advisable the section of internal audit effectiveness to be enriched. I recommend also the authors to review former literature review (eg Nerantzidis, M., Pazarskis, M., Drogalas, G. and Galanis, S. (2022) Internal auditing in the public sector: a systematic literature review and future research agenda, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 34(2), pp. 189-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-02-2020-0015), and organized their paper accordingly.
Authors’ Response:
We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have reviewed the paper that has been mentioned by the reviewer, however, our paper is a different style of literature review and the purpose is also different. The purpose of our systematic literature as we mentioned in the first statement in the abstract is to “systematically review the literature on the influential factors of internal audit effectiveness and articulate these factors in a conceptual model”, therefore the literature builds on synthesizing the factors that affect the internal audit effectiveness and summary table provided in the appendix summarize the studies and the research methods used and the factors have been studied.
Comment 3:
In the introduction the authors should present why, at this point, the literature review is important
Authors’ Response:
We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. The comment has been addressed (please refer to page 1) “This paper attempts to articulate a conceptual model based on the literature, also our motivation for this paper is to answer the question: can we conceptualize a model that includes the influential factors of IA effectiveness based on what the literature says? . This paper responds to this question through building on the literature of internal auditing and its argument on the factors that influence IA effectiveness and their dimensions”, We followed that with a new statement that highlight that why systematic literature review is conducted, the statement as follows: “a systematic literature review is conducted to synthesizing the factors that affect the internal audit effectiveness.”
Comment 4:
Moreover in the methodology the authors should clarify why they have excluded Web of Science? Have they considered that the same article could be in research gate and emerald or science direct? If this is the case, how have you dealt with it? Have any duplications been found? if yes, how many?
Authors’ Response:
We thank the reviewer for this comment. The Web of Science is included our review, maybe we have missed to mention it in our paper. We have included the web of science (please refer to page 5). Regarding, duplication issue, our review considers the duplication of the articles and excludes the duplication as mentioned in the article, however, the number of the excluded articles is not an issue of our paper as we explain in the methodology the steps to reach the relevant studies to build on it our study.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The main question in this paper, and especially in relation to the results presented in it, is the scientific contribution of this paper. It is solely about the great effort of the authors in systematizing known facts and creating a conceptual model that primarily facilitates the perception of known facts and summarizes several concepts in the field of internal auditing to enable better understanding and interpretation. In this context, the authors correctly set the title of the paper, research question, and objectives, but the question is to what extent the methodology of this research and its results have a scientific value.
The authors should further clarify how and on what basis, on page 6 of the paper, they asserted that their model consists of five key factors including 10 dimensions. It is unclear which criteria and which methodology of scientific research they took into account. This research consists solely in the fact that the authors systematized primary research in the field of internal audit effectiveness, which is based on empirical data and scientific evidence, into a conceptual model that they shaped according to criteria that they did not sufficiently explain. In the Conclusion part of the paper, the authors correctly systematized what they actually did in the paper, but the question is whether the contribution as described in the Conclusion and the objective they set in the Introduction is a feature of scientific research, or is it a systematization and interpretation of already known facts.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewer 3
Comment:
The main question in this paper, and especially in relation to the results presented in it, is the scientific contribution of this paper. It is solely about the great effort of the authors in systematizing known facts and creating a conceptual model that primarily facilitates the perception of known facts and summarizes several concepts in the field of internal auditing to enable better understanding and interpretation. In this context, the authors correctly set the title of the paper, research question, and objectives, but the question is to what extent the methodology of this research and its results have a scientific value.
The authors should further clarify how and on what basis, on page 6 of the paper, they asserted that their model consists of five key factors including 10 dimensions. It is unclear which criteria and which methodology of scientific research they took into account. This research consists solely in the fact that the authors systematized primary research in the field of internal audit effectiveness, which is based on empirical data and scientific evidence, into a conceptual model that they shaped according to criteria that they did not sufficiently explain. In the Conclusion part of the paper, the authors correctly systematized what they actually did in the paper, but the question is whether the contribution as described in the Conclusion and the objective they set in the Introduction is a feature of scientific research, or is it a systematization and interpretation of already known facts.
Authors’ Response:
We thank and appreciate the reviewer’s comments and the positive feedback. The study adopted a scientific approach to reach the result. The result of the study is based on an intensive literature review and provided a holistic view about of factor affecting the internal audit effectiveness, also the model proposed as we mentioned on page 7 the study is based on and extends Lenz, Sarens and D'Silva (2014) and Roussy, Barbe and Raimbault (2020) models. The value of our model is providing a holistic view of the influential factor of IA effectiveness and taking into consideration the new phenomenon in the internal auditing which is “leading the implementation of combined assurance”. Also, we adopted an appropriate methodology that help us to answer the research question “can we conceptualize a model that includes the influential factors of IA effectiveness based on what the literature says?”.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I agree with the publication of this paper with the title change as suggested by Reviewer 1 - The Influential Factors of Internal Audit Effectiveness: A Literature Review.
