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This document is a research paper that explores the effect of external efficacy on the moral courage and self-efficacy of internal auditors in Tunisia. The study collected questionnaires from internal auditors in Tunisian companies and used a statistical model to test their hypotheses. The findings show that external efficacy has a positive impact on internal auditors' moral courage and self-efficacy. The study offers practical solutions for organizations aiming to encourage internal auditors to report fraud and corruption. The document also includes a questionnaire for further research on internal auditing in Tunisia. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between digitalization and money laundering and tests whether ethical behaviour of firms and corruption moderate this association. Design/methodology/approach: The sample includes 114 countries during 2016. Basel Anti-Money Laundering Report for 2016 is used to collect data concerning money laundering. Digitalization proxies are collected from digital adoption index from the World Bank for 2016. Finally, the remaining variables are gathered from the Global Competitiveness Report for the same year. Findings: Results show negative and significant associations between the overall digitalization score and sub-scores dealing with digitalization adoption by businesses, people and government and money laundering. When testing for the moderating effect of corruption, the negative and significant association remains stable for both low and high corrupt environments for the overall digitalization score and sub-scores dealing digitalization adoption by businesses and people and money laundering. Similarly, ethical behaviour of firms does not moderate the association between digitalization (overall index and digitalization by business and people) and money laundering, as the relationship remains negative and significant for low and high ethical behaviour sub-samples. By contrast, the association becomes insignificant between digitalization adoption by government and money laundering for countries characterized by high corruption and low ethical behaviour of firms, while it is negative and significant for countries characterized by low corruption and high ethical behaviour firms. Originality/value: These findings confirm that digitalization effort represents a crucial arm to combat money laundering. It also emphasizes the interrelation that may exist between digitalization effort in governmental institutions and institutional environment, as low levels of money laundering cannot be reached if the digitalization effort undertaken by governments is not supported by low corruption and ethical business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between ethical behavior of firms and foreign direct investments in African countries and tests whether the judicial independence moderates this association. The sample includes 108 country-year observations over a period of 2014–2017. Findings show that the ethical behavior of firms is positively associated with foreign direct investment. Similarly, judicial independence has a positive and significant effect on the same variable. When testing for the moderating effects of judicial independence, the association between ethical behavior of firms and foreign direct investment remains positive and significant for high judicial independence sub-sample, while it becomes insignificant for countries characterized by low judicial independence. The findings highlight the importance of business ethics in attracting foreign direct investment inflows in African countries. It also emphasizes the need to consider the role played by high judicial independence in strengthening this association. These results signal to policy makers in African countries the importance of adopting enforcing rules obliging firms to act ethically and strengthening judicial independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the association between internal control quality (ICQ) and audit report lag (ARL) and to test whether family directors affect the relationship. Design/methodology/approach: ICQ is measured by using the framework developed by Michelon et al. (2015), while ARL is measured as the number of days from fiscal year-end to the date of the auditor's report. Findings: Using a sample of 190 French companies over the period of 2016–2019, the authors document that ICQ is negatively associated with ARL, suggesting that ICQ represents a key determinant of audit delay. When testing for the moderating effect of family directors on this relationship, findings show that under high percentage of family directors on the board, this relationship becomes insignificant. Originality/value: This paper extends previous research on audit delays by investigating the moderating effect of family directors on the relation between ICQ and ARL in the French setting. The empirical evidence highlights the adverse effect of the concentration of family directors on the board on timely disclosure as proxied by ARL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]