Date of Award
1990
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
First Advisor
Glenn E. Sumners
Abstract
Little evidence exists concerning the criteria which internal auditors consider when selecting activities to perform during systems design. Likewise, knowledge concerning the perceived role(s) of the internal auditor in systems design is limited. This dissertation examined the perceptions of internal auditors who have assisted in the development of a system and have, therefore, participated in the choosing of activities to perform during systems development. Nine systems design audit activities were selected from the literature to represent the different levels of involvement recommended in the literature. Internal auditors' judgments of the similarity of the nine audit activities were collected in two questionnaires, representing two areas of internal auditor involvement: (1) The Controllability Questionnaire assumed that activities are chosen to provide assurance that adequate EDP application controls are designed into a system. (2) The Auditability Questionnaire assumed that activities are chosen to provide assurance that audit needs are designed into a system. Respondents were approximately equal between the above groups. Internal auditors judged the similarity of each pair of the audit activities and then rated the activities on attributes chosen by the researcher, a priori, as factors influencing these similarity judgements. The survey results were analyzed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) and canonical correlation techniques. Internal auditors' perceptions of systems design audit activities were modeled in two-dimensional MDS solutions for both groups of respondents. The attributes found to significantly affect the perceptions of systems design audit activities in the auditability MDS solution differed from those in the controllability MDS solution. Both models identified the activities which each respondent group perceived as the most and least appropriate.
Recommended Citation
Cerullo, Margaret Virginia, "A Study of Internal Auditor Perceptions of Selected Audit Activities Performed During the Design Phase of Systems Development." (1990). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 4974.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/4974
Pages
311
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.4974