Although existing studies suggest that audit committee characteristics influence the interaction with the IAF, the fees paid to the external auditor and the selection of auditors (e.g. Vermeer et al., 2009; Abbott et al., 2004; Carcello et al., 2002; Raghunandan et al., 2001; Abbott and Parker, 2000), it is still not known from prior research how the characteristics of the audit committee (independence of audit committee, expertise of audit committee members and number of meetings) are related to promoting internal audit conformance with the ISPPIA, which is the primary motivation of this study.