Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of internal audit with respect to Auditing Corporate Governance Statements based on a practical approach. Moreover, it examines the application of internal control best practices in the Athens publicly listed firms based on a series of related statements.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted all large and medium capitalization publicly listed companies via a research questionnaire which forms a basis of a descriptive research analysis. The methodology is based on the best worldwide acceptable practices as represented by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations internal control – integrated framework, as well as the relevant laws and regulations and best practices with respect to Corporate Governance Statements.Findings: The research concludes that internal auditors limit their role in verifying compliance with the relevant laws and regulations rather than adopt a consulting role toward the improvement of the content and quality of Corporate Governance Statements information. Also, it contributes to the corporate governance research by verifying that the effectiveness of internal controls contributes to sound corporate governance practices.Practical implications: Internal auditors depending on the organization they serve may adopt different roles regarding Corporate Governance Statements preparation, review and audit such as consultative which may add value to the quality of Corporate Governance Statements.Originality/value: It is the first research regarding quality characteristics of the Corporate Governance Statements and the role of internal audit in Greece, and it provides the basis for further research among European Union countries.

This study analyzed the interdependencies between employment and accounting measures, in order to evaluate the merger effects during the period of the economic crisis in Greece. More specifically, the study analyses five accounting measures in comparison to the total number of employees, as financial ratios, from a sample of all Greek listed firms in the Athens Exchange that executed one merger in the period from 2009 to 2013 as acquirers. From the analysis of the results, it is clear that the mergers had no effect on employment and labor productivity for the whole sample firms merged from 2009 to 2013 and the productivity of workers have not improved significantly after the mergers. Lastly, the study examined the industry differentiation of labor productivity after mergers. The results reveal, in general, a better performance for the commerce and services (CMS) firms from the sample in contrast to the three other basic industry categories: Primary sector (PRI), industrial sector (IND), and constructions and building materials (CNΒ). Key words: Mergers, employment, labor productivity, ratios.

In 2002, developments in the global markets during the past decades have highlighted the need for common accounting standards among companies all around the world so as the financial statements to be comparable. From 2005 onwards the Greek Companies listed on the Athens Exchange was an accounting “revolution” of the 21st century, given the difference in philosophy between the Greek GAAP and the International Accounting Standards-IAS (next, IFRS). This study evaluates the implementation of IFRS on the financial statements of Greek publicly listed companies of high and medium capitalization, which are companies that are included in the FTSE 20 and FTSE 40 indexes of the Athens Stock Exchange-ASE, respectively. Also, for those firms we examined the effect of the size of the audit firm. The research was conducted based on the analysis of thirteen ratios. According to our analysis only few of the ratios have changed significantly. Finally, regarding the impact of the size of the audit firm the results reveal controversy with the present bibliography concerning “Big 4” in comparison with “non-Big 4” firms in Greece

The authors propose a methodology for evaluating possible risks when preparing an audit plan in Greek municipalities, with applicability beyond this area.

The authors investigate the value of using information technologies in internal audit, finding that its effective use can help mitigate risks in business

The study examines the impact of mergers on accounting performance of Greek listed firms involved in mergers. More specifically, we studied a sample of thirty-two absorbed listed firms in four sectors (primary sector, technology-intensive industrial sector, commercial and services sector, construction sector) during the period of economic crisis by using thirty-two accounting measures and ratios extracted from corresponding financial statements. The results of the study indicated that there is no statistically significant improvement or worsening for none of the examined variables in the post-merger period for the merged firms in the four examined sectors. However, as the whole economic image of the Greek economy is not very encouraging with the economic crisis, we concluded that mergers lead the involved firms to avoid any business losses in such a difficult economic period. Last, the results among four industries showed that none of the examined quantitative variables has a statistically significant change, and thus, did not reveal a different performance of one industry, as economic crisis had horizontal effects all over the Greek business.