The Attitudes of Internal Auditors to Internal Audit Practice in Post-communist Countries - Case of Albania

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal the attitudes of internal auditors, towards overall internal audit practices in the post-communist country of Albania. The study presents the current state of internal audit practices in Albania from eyes of the internal auditors themselves. The study will explore the independence of the internal auditors, the level of professionalism they exhibit, the use of international standards, and whether current regulations are resulting in higher quality work in the profession. In order to study these objectives, a 169-person questionnaire was conducted, all participants where internal auditors from public and private sectors in Albania. The research findings of the study reveal that internal auditors can be assessed as independent in Albania, and that the private sector is the most independent. Regarding professionalism, internal auditors are able to detect and prevent fraud in companies. In this paper, we examine the international standards of auditing that are used by Albanian auditors; the international standards are really useful for internal auditors in Albania, even though there is much room for improvement. The number of participants was limited of 169 and analyzed one country. For the future researches questionnaire can be conducted more than one country to have comparative analysis. One improvement needed is the adaptation of the international standards in national regulations. This will make the international standards easier to apply and understand the standards in Albania.