The Impact of the Audit Committee and Internal Audit Function on Board Decision Making During an Extreme Financial Crisis

This study investigates the effectiveness of audit committees and the internal audit function in conjunction with the impact of Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on company decision making. The study sample comprised of all non-financial companies listed in the London Stock Exchange between 2008 and 2010 financial periods. We find little evidence of audit committee involvement in company financial reporting decisions as they have neither moderated company’s earnings management nor have any effect on the auditor’s opinion issued during the GFC period. Instead, our results indicate that the internal audit function and joint industry audit specialists promoted higher earnings and audit quality. These suggest that the internal and external audit functions seemed to be more effective than the audit committee in contributing to improved quality in a company financial reporting and audit, hence they were the more important pillars of board performance management and decision making during the GFC turbulent time.