Internal audit professional principles and academic literature over the last decade: is there a gap to bridge

Abstract

The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has defined the ethical principles internal auditors must adhere to, allowing them to create a common understanding of ethical behaviour within their profession, thereby promoting ethical culture. This paper aims to analyse the role of these principles in the main branches of internal audit research over the last decade. We examine the most important articles published in this field and categorise them into seven main strands. We assess the extent to which these strands focus on the IIA ethical principles, aiming to identify research gaps in the extant literature. Our findings show that the literature dealing with ethical principles in the recruitment process and the public sector is sparse and fragmented. In addition, we found virtually no paper dealing with the principle of confidentiality. This paper calls for more efforts by scholars to bridge the gap between this literature and professional ethical principles.