INTERNAL AUDIT COMPETENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS: LESSON FROM INDONESIA

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of internal auditor’s competence on the
internal audit effectiveness in the public sector. Prior studies have conducted this research
topic mostly on the private sector, and there is still limited study on the public sector
especially on the higher education sector. The units of analysis for the study are the semiautonomous universities in Indonesia. We distributed questionnaires for top management and
Chief of Audit Executive (CAE) for each university. We asked top management about the
effectiveness of the internal audit while the CAE answered the internal audit competence
instrument. Our findings show that there is a positive effect of auditor’s competence on the
internal audit effectiveness. Hence, it is evidenced that in the public sector, auditor
competence is one of the determinants of internal audit effectiveness as in the private.