The impact of foreignness on the compliance with the international standards for the professional practice of internal auditing

The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) was established to organise the profession. The IIA provides members with an International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF) to lead their professional practice and confirm the highest-quality internal audit effects in various environments. One of the IPPF components is the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (the Standards). The goals of the Standards are to describe essential principles that characterise the practice of internal auditing, to deliver a framework for performing and promoting a wide range of value-added internal auditing, to create the basis for the assessment of internal audit performance, and to foster development of organizational processes and operations. However, some researchers have reported many factors related to the lack of compliance with the Standards, related directly to the fieldwork of the profession, which can be controlled by the board of directors, executives or audit committee either in the short or long term. This study however, is premised on the assumption that solving the internal factors (for instance, internal auditors’ educational level (college degree), professional certificates, Certificate of Internal Auditors (CIA), membership of organisation and age of internal audit staff) related directly to the organization or its resources is not the ultimate solution to compliance with the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing Standards. This is because, if a particular organisation tries to adopt a certain strategy to eliminate negative effects associated with internal factors, there are complicated external environmental factors that may not be controllable. For this reason, this study examines foreignness (social capital) as a major factor that affects internal auditors’ compliance with the Standards from an environmental perspective, which is one of the main significant contributions of this study. The study examines compliance with International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing in relation to various cultural factors, such as personal, friendship, and family relationships, which are especially salient in developing, Arab, and Gulf countries. Moreover, another contribution of this study is to examine compliance with the standards from a linguistic prospective. Many countries may recognize and use English as an official language and have no trouble in the basic comprehension of the standards, but meaning may not be completely and accurately conveyed in the nuances of the language, which are unique to different cultural settings. For this reason, the study assumes that language will play a critical role with regard to understanding and consequently complying with the standards. In non-English speaking countries, the IIA has tried to solve this issue by translating the standards into the host country language. Therefore, the study also examines compliance with the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing in terms of two main linguistic factors, Understanding and Translation. A questionnaire strategy was used to collect quantitative data. The companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange Market, selected from different sectors in order to have a diversity of responses from many industries. The results showed that there is an influence of social capital (personal social capital, friendship social capital, and family social capital) on the compliance with the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (Independence and Objectivity, Individual Objectivity, and Governance). The findings also showed that there is an effect of Linguistic Social Capital (Understanding, and Translation) on compliance with the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing with regard to professional terms such as Add Value and Residual Risk

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is finally a common sense term. Nowadays almost everyone knows that using energy more efficiently saves money, reduces the emissions of greenhouse gasses and lowers dependence on imported fossil fuels. We are living in a fossil age at the peak of its strength. Competition for securing resources for fuelling economic development is increasing, price of fuels will increase while availability of would gradually decline. Small nations will be first to suffer if caught unprepared in the midst of the struggle for resources among the large players. Here it is where energy efficiency has a potential to lead toward the natural next step - transition away from imported fossil fuels! Someone said that the only thing more harmful then fossil fuel is fossilized thinking. It is our sincere hope that some of chapters in this book will influence you to take a fresh look at the transition to low carbon economy and the role that energy efficiency can play in that process

13th International Postgraduate Research Conference 2017 : conference proceedings

Welcome to the 13th International Postgraduate Research Conference (IPGRC 2017) hosted by the School of the Built Environment at University of Salford, UK. This year’s IPGRC is organised as part of the International Research Week 2017- ‘Shaping Tomorrow’s Built Environment: Construction and Design for the Modern World’ and also the year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Salford as a University, which makes this year’s conference very special. This conference creates a unique opportunity for researchers from Salford and other parts of the world to share their research interests, and outputs and to network and interact within a professional and friendly environment, with high profile academics and leaders within the built environment. This year’s conference brings together participants from a number of countries including the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Ireland, Norway, India, Brazil, South Korea, Nigeria, Turkey, UAE, South Africa, Iraq, Ghana, Estonia, Saudi Arabia and many more. The conference received over 100 papers and posters covering the following themes: • Business, Economics and Finance • Property and Project Management • ICT, Technology and Engineering • People, Skills and Education • Design and Urban Development • Sustainability and Environmental Systems Conference will provide a forum for novel discussions into the development and application of new and emerging practices to challenge current design and construction practice in the areas of people, process and technology issues. On behalf of School of the Built Environment, the conference co-chairs and organisers, we wish you an enjoyable and fruitful experience. We hope that you will obtain useful feedback to your research work, gain insight from work of others and forge connections for future

Проблемы геологии и освоения недр. Т. 2

В сборнике отражены проблемы палеонтологии, стратиграфии, тектоники, исторической и региональной геологии, минералогии, геохимии, петрологии, литологии, полезных ископаемых, металлогении, гидрогеологии, гидрогеохимии, инженерной геологии, геофизики, нефтяной геологии, геоинформационных систем в геологии, разработки нефтяных и газовых месторождений, переработки углеводородного и минерального сырья, нефтегазопромыслового оборудования, бурения нефтяных и газовых скважин, техники и технологии разведки и добычи, транспорта и хранения нефти и газа, горного дела, технологии и техники разведки месторождений полезных ископаемых, геоэкологии, гидрогеоэкологии, охраны и инженерной защиты окружающей среды, комплексного использования минерального сырья, землеустройства, экономики минерального сырья и горного права