Purpose This study aims to investigate internal control (IC) implementation in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study also explores determinants, obstacles and contributions of IC implementation within HEIs. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative research method by conducting semi-structured interviews with internal auditors of HEIs. Findings This study found a difference of IC among all HEIs in terms of design. IC implementation is perceived to have a positive contribution to accountability enhancement and fraud mitigation. Several determinants and obstacles faced by HEIs in implementing IC are presented in the paper. Practical implications The IC has to be operated effectively to achieve its benefit. However, not all HEIs implement IC properly. Originality/value This paper is a pioneer study that raises IC implementation in HEIs and its role in governance practices and corruption mitigation.

The research reported in this paper takes up Michael Power's challenge that accounting researchers should pay more attention to the perceptions of auditees and how they respond to audit regimes. The setting of the study is the intense performance assessment regime imposed on local authorities in England from 2002 to 2009, one part of which -the Use of Resources (UoR) assessment -rated the financial management capability and performance of each English local authority. The perceptions of senior local authority finance officers within the Yorkshire and the Humber region are reported, using a written questionnaire and an interview to explore the reasoning behind the chosen responses. The results are more nuanced than suggested by either the official rhetoric justifying the UoR system or by those critics who view such systems as dysfunctional. Respondents portray themselves as intelligent actors, not as passive recipients. Most learned to use the UoR process to drive performance improvement, though there is some ambiguity as to whether the improvements were genuine or solely a product of the scoring system. Though adding to workload, UoR was regarded as one of the external pressures to be managed and its requirements largely represented professional views of best practice. Three of the types of control that characterise 'regulation inside government ' (Hood et al., 1999) -oversight, competition and contrived randomness -are seen through the perceptions of the auditees. There is some evidence of the fourth style, mutualityworking through professional networks to help local authorities improve their actual and reported performance.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation of integrated internal audit management (IIAM) and compare the implementation of IIAM by Malaysian firms with different certifications (ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001). Design/methodology/approach This study involves three studies on the implementation of integrated internal audit processes. Furthermore, this study compares the implementation of the audit in the selected firms. The qualitative research methodology was adopted to analyse the data. Findings This study is an exploratory study and the findings indicate the differences between the implementation of the internal audit process across different firms. All the firms are highly motivated and demonstrate resource management whilst implementing the IIAM while firms experiencing the same difficulties. The study also found that all of the firms are enjoying similar benefits. Research limitations/implications The scope of this research paper is limited to three Malaysian manufacturing firms with different quality certifications: ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. Thus, the finding cannot be generalised to all firms in Malaysia. However, the findings are significant as they present an interesting comparison between the implementation of IIAM by manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Originality/value Although the integration of management systems has been analysed many times, this study focussed on the comparison of firms’ practices of the IIAM.

This study aims to investigate the key factors promoting internal control implementation effectiveness in Indonesian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This study uses a qualitative approach by employing interviews as data collection technique. 13 informants were involved, consisting of management members of internal control unit, top management of HEI, and HEI accreditation assessor. The results reveal that to achieve effective implementation of internal control, seven key factors must be considered, including: (1) Management and foundation roles; (2) Awareness of all organization members; (3) Sufficient and competence of human resources; (4) Internal auditor attitude; (5) Organizational climate; (6) IT support; and (7) Funding support. The results of this study address research gaps related to internal control studies in the context of HEI, especially in developing countries, which according to Chalmers et al. (2019) still gets very little attention by accounting scholars.

This paper focuses on the adoption of performance measurement in public sectors in Malaysia. The objectives of the study are to examine the extent to which performance measurement is designed and linked to the strategy and the extent of performance measures being used in a balanced manner in accordance to the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach. A survey was conducted to senior civil servants and the results reveal that the design of public sector performance measurement system is moderately well developed. In examining the balanced nature of performance measurement, this study reveals that there is an overall lack of balanced indicators except for indicators on financial and nonfinancial such as input, activity and output indicators.