2. Prior research and hypotheses development
The Saudi Arabian regulations of audit committees[1], the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) (2012) Guidance on Audit Committees and the FRC’s (2014) UK Corporate Governance Code describe the audit committee as a key to good corporate governance. It is responsible for arranging direct access by the CIA to the board of directors and to the audit committee itself, to which the IAF is directly accountable. Additionally, it should oversee and evaluate the annual work plan of the internal audit, periodically review the work of the internal auditors and monitor the responsiveness of management to findings and recommendations proposed by the internal auditor. These responsibilities require that the audit committee has a meeting at least once annually with the CIA, in which management is not present. This is to secure the independence of the two parties from senior management. Furthermore, the audit committee should ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to the IAF (Carcello et al., 2002 and 2005). Hence, the audit committee must be in a position where it has some power in respect of the financial support required by the IAF.