Internal auditing in a multicultural environment: the Saudi Arabia experience

A common characteristic of the typical private sector industrial organization in developing economies is the multinational make-up of the workforce. Each nationality has a unique culture which influences how an individual from that culture will respond to various situations or events in the work environment. There is a concern that these variable responses will preclude accurate internal audits. Reports on an empirical examination of the cultural influence on auditee responses to audit encounters. Internal auditors from several organizations in Saudi Arabia were given a series of auditing encounters, each of which had a known cultural dimension, and asked to compare the behaviour of auditees from six ethnic cultures. The data show no significant differences in behaviour, which suggests that no changes to the internal auditing process are necessary in a multicultural environ-ment. The reason appears to be the professionalism of the internal auditor.