The Impact of Audit Committee Charactristics on Audit Quality- An Applied Study on Saudi Joint Stock Companies

In the current research, the researcher addressed the relationship between the characteristics of audit committees and the quality of auditing in Saudi joint stock companies. The researcher tested the relationship between the various characteristics of the audit committee and the audit quality in the Saudi business environment. By testing the relationship between four basic characteristics of the audit committee mentioned in the amended corporate governance regulations issued in 2017, which were also mentioned in most previous studies, and audit quality. The researcher assumed four statistical hypotheses:
- The first statistical hypothesis: “The greater the independence of the members of the audit committee, the greater the quality of the audit.”
- The second statistical hypothesis: “The presence of a member with financial and accounting experience in the audit committee increases the quality of the audit.”
- The third statistical hypothesis: “The greater the number of audit committee meetings, the greater the quality of the audit.”
- The fourth statistical hypothesis: “The greater the number of members of the audit committee, the greater the quality of the audit.”
The results of the statistical test for these hypotheses were as follows:
The first hypothesis was rejected, as the results indicated that there was no significant relationship between the independence of the audit committee member and audit quality. The second hypothesis was accepted, as the results indicated that there was a positive significant relationship between the financial and accounting experience of the audit committee member and audit quality. The third hypothesis was also rejected, as the results indicated that there was insignificant relationship between the number of audit committee meetings and  audit quality.
Finally, the fourth hypothesis was rejected, as the results indicated that there was a negative significant relationship (inverse relationship) between the size of the audit committee  (the number of its members) and audit quality