Purpose: This study is motivated by the competing views on whether internal governance mechanisms complement or substitute for external auditing, and how this association is affected by ownership concentration. The complementary view predicts that good internal governance mechanisms are related to high-quality audit. On the other hand, corporate governance mechanisms may be substituted for each other, so more investment in governance mechanisms leads to less investment in external auditing. Therefore, this study aims to examine the association between internal governance mechanisms and the demand for audit quality. Design/methodology/approach: Data from Malaysian listed companies during the period 2009 to 2012 are used. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression is applied to analyse the data. Findings: Companies with a higher concentration of ownership are less likely to demand extensive auditing. In addition, the study provides supporting evidence for the complementary association between a company’s governance and audit fees. However, the ownership concentration plays a minor role in the positive association between internal corporate governance and audit quality. Further tests are conducted and support the main findings. Practical implications: Significant implications are provided for the audit profession in emerging economies, where concentrated ownership is common, to help policymakers and regulators in determining the power of controlling shareholders on audit quality and firm’s governance. The study’s findings open up avenues for further research. Originality/value: This is the first work to address the role of ownership concentration in the association between corporate governance and audit quality; it suggests that the ownership structure must be considered in examining the effectiveness of corporate governance. The study also provides a comprehensive combination of internal governance mechanisms.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance strength on stock market liquidity in an emerging country, namely, Malaysia, by constructing a corporate governance score that captures both internal monitoring mechanisms (board of directors’ characteristics, audit committee’s characteristics and internal audit function) and external monitoring mechanism (audit quality). Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a sample of 2,020 yearly firm observations in Bursa Malaysia over the period 2009-2012. The ordinary least square regression and several estimation methods such as two-stage least squares using instrumental variables (IV-2SLS) and dynamic GMM are employed. Findings: This study finds a significant positive association between corporate governance effectiveness and stock market liquidity. The finding is robust to alternative liquidity measurements, to alternative estimation methods, and to endogeneity bias. Research limitations/implications: This result implies that the firms with effective monitoring mechanisms mitigate information asymmetry which leads to less adverse selection problems among traders. Practical implications: This study provides implications for regulators to help design regulations that enhance stock market liquidity. This study could also help investors and traders to formulate their trading decisions, and enables firms to know the importance of strengthening the corporate governance monitoring mechanisms. Originality/value: This study constructs a corporate governance effectiveness measure by combining both internal and external monitoring mechanisms. These mechanisms have not been constructed together in one score in the corporate governance literature and the impact of internal audit function, as an internal monitoring mechanism on liquidity, has yet to be examined.

Purpose: This study is motivated by the lack of internal audit function (IAF) research and by the call for research on the impact of dominant owners such as family shareholders on audit fees and the demand for audit quality. This study aims to examine the impact of the IAF budget on the selection of industry-specialist auditors and on audit fees, particularly in companies with family-controlled shareholders, a feature unique to Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach: Data of Malaysian-listed companies during the period 2009-2012 are used. To examine the relationships, logit and ordinary least square regressions are used. Several additional analyses are conducted to assess the robustness of the main results, including alternative measures of specialist auditor and family ownership, endogeneity problems and self-selection bias.Findings: The results show that the IAF budget is positively related to hiring industry-specialist auditors and audit fees. However, family companies are less likely to support the positive association between IAF costs and engage specialist auditors than non-family companies. In addition, a complementary association between the costs of IAF and audit fees for both family and non-family companies was found. Finally, the results show that there is a negative association between family ownership and the ratio of IAF costs to audit fees, suggesting that family companies rely more upon external auditing than internal auditing.Originality/value: The contribution of this study is to provide an empirical evidence about the tradeoff between IAF and both industry-specialist auditors and audit fees with considering the moderating impact of family-ownership shareholdings. This issue is yet to be examined, and it provides implications for policymakers and practitioners, as it offers insights into the importance of investing in IAF toward hiring industry-specialist auditors and pricing the audit services.

Purpose: The worldwide spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has significant effects on financial markets and companies, causing an unprecedented level of uncertainty in reporting and auditing companies' financial statements. This study explores whether and how COVID-19 affects audit fees.Design/methodology/approach: Using a sample of 268 firm-year observations from the Omani capital market between 2017 and 2020, the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a robust standard error is applied to answer the research question of this study.Findings: The authors find that the pandemic has a significant and positive association with audit fees and abnormal audit fees. This finding suggests that the threat of risk, complexity and legal liability circumstances resulting from the pandemic can be compensated by charging higher audit fees. In addition, the authors provide evidence that Big4 audit firms are those most responding to COVID-19 by charging higher audit fees. Finally, the authors conclude that large companies are less sensitive to the pandemic.Practical implications: Users of financial reports and audit firms should anticipate changes in the audit efforts resulting in increased audit fees during COVID-19. Thus, this paper may guide practitioners and businesses in determining the audit fees and associated costs of any potential pandemic.Originality/value: The study results are among the earliest empirical insights into the effect of COVID-19 on audit fees in Oman.

Attracting institutional shareholders in stock markets has drawn the attention of financial market regulators and researchers. Globally, governments are trying to attract institutional investors by reducing information asymmetry and improving governance and transparency, in order to produce a high-quality financial reporting system. Hence, this study investigates the impact of financial reporting systems quality (FRSQ) on institutional ownership. It uses all non-financial listed companies on Bursa Malaysia over the period 2009–2016. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression based on two-way cluster-robust standard errors (firm and year) is used to achieve the objective of the study. The findings show a positive relationship between institutional ownership and FRSQ, suggesting that institutional investors prefer to invest in a firm that has effective FRS. The study differs from previous research in terms of capturing the FRSQ based on a wider set of governance attributes, namely audit committee characteristics (size, independence, diligence and expertise), internal audit function (IAF) cost and sourcing arrangements, and external auditors’ attributes (audit fees, industry auditor specialist, auditor’s reputation and size) that are yet to be examined in either developed or developing countries. It offers insights for regulators in Malaysia and other emerging economies which are in the process of undertaking regulatory reforms in their corporate governance structure. Managers could learn which aspects of corporate governance should be considered to keep their firm in a strong position in terms of its ability to attract institutional investors.