Determinants of the internal audit management Effectiveness in the government units –The case of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The aim of the current research is to determine the determinants of the effectiveness of internal audit in government units in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this  goal was achieved by achieving the sub-goals of the research, which were “to present and analyze a set of previous studies related to the determinants of the effectiveness of the internal audit, and to identify the most important factors upon which the previous studies settled as determinants of the effectiveness of internal audit, then Introducing some alternative measures for each factor that is expected to influence the effectiveness of the internal audit units, finally  the set of determinants were tested for the effectiveness of the internal audit, which were derived from previous studies to test their existence and the extent of their effect on achieving the effectiveness of the internal audit in government units in the Saudi environment . The field study was conducted in two stages, in the first stage the effect of all independent determinants which was (the quality of the internal audit, the professional competence of the internal auditor, the independence of the internal auditor, support of the higher management of the internal auditor, cooperation and coordination between the internal and external auditor) on the dependent variable which is “ the effectiveness of internal auditing was examined through the multiple regression model. The results came to prove only two significant factors or determinants, namely (the auditor's professional competence and the auditor's dependence on the internal auditor's work) in their relationship to the dependent variable, which is the effectiveness of the internal audit and this  result is inconsistent with most previous studies. This matter requires further research. Therefore, the researcher has tried to explain that result by building a simple regression model for each variable or factor of the three rejected independent variables in multiple regression (internal audit quality, independence of the internal auditor, senior management support for the internal auditor) and trying to test it with the dependent variable each separately through simple regression model. The results came to prove the significance relationship between each of the three variables and the dependent variable, and the researcher attributed the insignificant effect of the three determinants in the multiple regression model because of the interrelationships between the independent variables that appear when they are combined and tested together in one regression model, which leads to the cancellation or substitution of some of them, This matter requires further study and testing in future research.