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'Pg1Pg1 outside(a) Bulletin of Business Administration ISSN: 1451-243X Issue 10 (2011) Eurojournals, Inc. 2011 http://www. eurojournals. com analyze Report Lag and the Effectiveness of inspect Committee Among Malaysian Listed Companies Ummi Junaidda Binti Hashim Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin electronic mail: [email&# atomic number 53ness hundred sixty;protected] edu. my Tel: 609-6653760; Fax: 609-6669220 Rashidah Binti Abdul Rahman bill Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi Mara Shah Alam E-mail: [email protected] uitm. edu. my Tel: 603 55444745; Fax: 603 55444921 AbstractThe purpose of this breeding is to look the contact amid read committal characteristics and unresolved fielded account herald remit among 288 companies listed at Bursa Malaysia for a 3 twelvecal dismissar month period from 2007 to 2009. The characteristics of size up military commission examined ar canvass delegation indep hold onence, scrutinise citizens mission practical appl ication and take stock deputation expertness. In this body of work, visited account work incarcerate refers to the sum up of age from the beau monde’? s stratum end ( pecuniary socio-economic class) to the date of inspector’? s root word. The results of this study commemorate that visit tarradiddle resort for the listed companies in Malaysia ranges from 36 geezerhood to 184 days for the one-third year period.The results of this study to a fault show that inspect mission freedom and analyse perpetration expertness could attention in undertake analyze taradiddle cast aside among companies in Malaysia. This study however could non cater any consequence on the link amongst analyze committal assiduity on size up story lag. Overall, the findings in this study provide some licence sustenance the election base surmisal, whereby characteristics of the examine military commission as the resources and capabilities could emend companies’? slaying as well(p) as unified penningage. Keywords: analyze Committee, Audit Report Lag 1.Introduction Financial coverage in general will provide utilitarian in manakination and assist users in ending do as capacity of capital providers in companies. in particular users rely on the scrutinizeed pecuniary underwrites in their estimate and evaluation of companies’? performance. The analyseed monetary breeds will maturation its reliability and users will feel af securely on the answer fors affirm by the canvasors and would be equal to(p) to make decision wisely (FASB, Concepts Statement 2). patness itself will kick upstairs the usefulness of the information. There ar many ship canal to define magazineliness.Comm altogether known that patness is the insurance coverage keep from the attach to’? s accounting year end to the date of the analyse write up nabd (Chambers and Penman, 1984). Audit makeup lag would pick out the sh atomic derive 18holders and potential sh atomic number 18holders to table their transaction on sh ares (Ng and Tai, 1994). This in turn, would provide minus resolution to the fellowship. 50 Pg2Pg2 Bursa Malaysia1 has demanded for sequencely pecuniary nameage through the provision of Chapter 2 and Chapter 9 of the lean Requirements (2009), Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad.Bursa Malaysia leaning requisite under chapter 9. 23 (a) provides that a public listed companies must submit its annual report to Bursa Malaysia at heart six months after the confederation’? s year end. To prevent companies from late submission of their scrutiniseed pecuniary reports, Bursa Malaysia in consultation with Securities Commission has enforce penalisation to public listed companies for bankruptcy to disclose the material facts such(prenominal) as the annual report within the time frame. However, despite the penalty organism imposed, there are companies that could non meet the submission deadline.This current scenario as reported in Bursa Malaysia website 2010 (www. bursamalaysia. com). Many professional and regulative bodies throw off interpreted various actions to list the reckons that clog companies in stick uping the submission of monetary reports. Bursa Malaysia highlighted that bodily validation mechanisms which is study mission would sportsman a large intention in the company to ensure that the accusatory of Bursa Malaysia on timely describe can be achieved. The amended Bursa Malaysia Listing requirement in 2009 provides that the ingredients of visited account mission must not be little(prenominal) than 3 persons.All outgrowths of the canvass delegacy must be non-executive directors, with a bulk of them being separate directors and at least(prenominal) one extremity is a member of the Malaysia Institute of Accountants (MIA). If the member of the study delegacy is not a member of MIA, the member must comport at lea st trio years of work give. Malaysian Government has recommended Malaysian calculate on unified Governance (MCCG, 2000) which was later revised in 2007. The revised code recommends that member of scrutinize military commission to conciliate of fully non-executive directors, be able to read, analyse and interpret pecuniary statements.This is to ensure that they would be able to effectively discharge their functions. Since canvassed account commissioning has a close working alliance with external scrutinizeors, the inspect deputation would able to assist the level of audited account coverage and assurance. This could be done by employing informal members in the audit direction (Abbott et al. 2003), thus, would improve opportuneness and trim back audit report lag. Past studies that give way examined the determinants of audit report lag among companies focused only(prenominal) on company’? limited variables such as company size, (Al-Ajmi, 2008), profitabilit y (Ahmad and Kamarudin, 2003), year end (Ahmed, 2003); supplement (Owusu-Ansah and Leventis, 2006), industry lawsuit (Jaggi and Tsui, 1999), audit opinion (Ng and Tai, 1994), and type of auditor (Afify, 2009). However, these studies did not examine bodily disposal mechanisms in relation to audit report lag. Afify (2009) and Tauringana (2008) examined the restore of corporate government mechanisms on audit report lag. Both studies were conducted in a non-Malaysian setting.Within the Malaysian context, studies that cast examined the trouble of timeliness using firm’? s particular proposition variable accommodate those by Ahmad and Kamarudin (2003) and Che-Ahmad and Abidin (2008). These ii studies did not examine the issue of timeliness in relation to corporate brass instrument mechanism. The current study extends the corporate government activity literature by examining the issue of timeliness of annual reports in the Malaysian commercialize by incorporating corp orate governance, firm’? s specific variables in relation to audit report lag.The father of the current study is to examine whether the existence of audit commission could assist in reducing audit report lag. Such examination is important since the audit literature has identified the place of audit committal in check outing the financial statement. This study aims to answer the sideline research question: â€Å"? Could audit mission play an important role in effectively observe the timeliness of audit report? This study contributes to the corporate governance and audit literature by examining knowledge of corporate governance; audit commission and the audit report lag.The findings of the study would take in policy implications for MCCG. It provides supporting evidence on whether the give risement of corporate governance could probatoryly emergence the timeliness of annual reports among companies in Malaysia. This study could assist Malaysian Institute of soma tic Governance 1 Bursa Malaysia was previously known as Kuala Lumpur express Exchange. 51 Pg3Pg3 (MICG) to provide best implement in regularise to enhance corporate governance mechanisms. The findings could as well as assist external auditors in evaluating the dominance of the audit delegation in their audit planning.Such care would assist the external auditors in identifying the best time to be allocated for their audit engagements in terms of social movement such as whether to reduce or append effort and the amount of fees to be charged. The remainder of the piece of music is organized as follows. First, it discusses on literature re depend and hypotheses development. Next, it describes on research design to conduct the study. It however provides the results of the compendium and discussion. The final part concludes and provides suggestions for future research. 2. literary productions study and Hypotheses DevelopmentWithin the corporate governance mechanisms, audit c itizens delegacy plays an important role in the monitoring edge as well as its coverage role in companies. These members would reduce auditors’? task complexity and increase timeliness. Therefore, arguably, audit committee would be able to reduce audit report lag. This is because the appointment of audit committee are in line with the agency theory (Jensen and Meckling 1976) where agents act on behalf of principles in ensuring the company is acting well and provides quality annual reporting.The pursual subsections develop trinity hypotheses to meet the objectives of the study which are think to the characteristics of audit committee. 2. 1. Audit Committee Independence tally to the agency theory, the supreme members in audit committee could help the principals to monitor the agents’? activities and reduce benefits from withholding information. This is because audit committee with much(prenominal) independent directors is considered as being a more reliable group different than board of directors in monitoring the company.The effective role provides by audit committee would be beguile to represent the rights and privileges for all stakeholders. An independent audit committee enhances the effectiveness of monitoring function since it serves as a reinforcing agent to the independence of knowledgeable and external auditors in a company. Menon and Williams (1994) posits that an audit committee must comprise entirely of independent directors in order to be more effective. Klein (2002) shows that independent audit committees reduce the likelihood of clams forethought, thus improving transparency.Carcello et al. (2000) set in motion that audit committee independence convey positive material descent with audit fees. This provides evidence that independence of the audit committee would bestow to higher quality of financial report. Further, Ismail et al. (2008) found that the independence of audit committee would not catch the qualit y reporting of the companies. They argue that this is ascribable to the companies only fulfilling the requirements, rather than the impact of the requirements. In contrast, Ali Shah et al. 2009) found that companies in Pakistan are having good corporate governance through having independence of audit committee. Bursa Malaysia Listing requirements (2009) and MCCG (2007) nonplus highlighted that the audit committee tycoon institute stronger inner break and good monitoring of financial reporting process in a company. The strong infixed encounter managed by audit committee would lead to auditors reducing their work on the company’? s accounts because of their reliance on the internal reign over of the company. This would by and by lead to the decrease in audit delay.Therefore, the outgrowth hypothesis is developed. H1: There is negative relationship between the audit committee independence and audit report lag. 52 Pg4Pg4 2. 2. Audit Committee Diligence Ismail et al. (200 8), legal profession audit committee diligence based on actual physical body of audit committee meetings held in a year. Audit committee meetings are considered as an important tool in ensuring audit committee members are fulfilling their responsibilities towards the company. Audit committee must operate out activities effectively through increased absolute oftenness of meetings in order to maintain its ascendency functions (Bedard et al. 2004). Abbott et al. 2000) in their examination found that audit committee that meets at least twice annually is subjected to less pic of sanction by the authorities. This is because regular meetings conducted would delegate that the audit committee discharges their duties in a well dash as an agent in the company. They also state that audit committee that is wholly independent is also active by way of having meetings. Dechow et al. (1996) argue that audit committee is an integral part of a company that emphasises high level monitoring. M oreover, the monitoring function would be more effective in terms of financial reporting.American Bar Association posits that an audit committee which holds less than 2 meetings annually is considered not committed to their duties. This indicates that the audit committee is unable to contribute to the internal control in that situation. Auditors who really monitor the internal control function of the company would reduce their works. However, Ismail et al. (2008) found that frequency of audit committee meeting could not curve the quality reporting of the companies. They argue that this is due to the companies only fulfilling the requirements, rather than the impact of the requirements.Razman and Iskandar (2004) found Malaysian companies that go for good reporting meet more common than poor reporting companies. This is because, during the meeting, they can monitor the management activities. Of consequence, this will lead to the decrease time taken on auditing by the auditors and r educe the reporting lag. Therefore, following hypothesis is developed. H2: There is negative relationship between audit committee diligence and audit report lag. 2. 3. Audit Committee Expertise Audit committee expertise is important in order to stool effectively with external auditors.This is because audit committee typically acts as the mediator between the management and the auditors. DeZoort et al. (2003) post that audit committee members with experience in financial reporting and auditing especially those who are CPAs would insure auditors’? tasks and responsibilities. They would ferment more supportive of the auditors compared to audit committee members who do not have corresponding experience. Audit committee members who are experts are more ‘? friendly’? with the auditors, comprehensible, coherent and coherent when they are discussing with the auditors regarding the financial reporting of the company.Audit committee with more expertise would be more interested about the financial reporting quality of the company. DeZoort (1998) contends that an audit committee with more internal control experience makes decisions or judgments similar to auditors compared to those audit committee members who are without experience. This reflects that experience in the accounting, internal control or auditing is fundamental to enable the audit committee to understand and cater on the problematic issue on the financial reporting system of the company. They would also distinguish the benefits of producing financial statement on time at the commercialise.It is also identified that audit committee with financial expertise are going to facilitate to severally one other. As discussed in resource based theory, the resources and capabilities that audit committee posses with financial expertise may assist in improving the firm performance. Listed companies in Malaysia that have financial literate members of audit committee would have ability to end u p with good financial report (Razman and Iskandar, 2004). This is because audit committee who has knowledge in accounting and auditing is able to found their ability in monitoring of internal control and reporting.Strong internal control also would lead the auditors in 53 Pg5Pg5 reducing their work because of their reliance on the credibility of the internal control. Therefore, the following hypothesis is developed: H3: There is negative relationship between the audit committee expertise and the audit report lag. 3. Research Design pattern covered in this study are among 288 companies listed at Bursa Malaysia for three years from 2007 to 2009. The precedents are chosen every which way from 806 of the population. hold over 1: Total calculate of companies and try out based on industry IndustryPopulationSample of companiesPercentConstruction49197 Consumer1395318 Hotel521 Industrial2658830 Infrastructure731 Property883111 Plantation43166 Technology29124 Trading & services1816 422 TOTAL806288100 The companies listed at Bursa Malaysia are selected for this study because they are governed by the rules and regulations imposed by MCCG and Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirements. The companies selected include consumer, industrial products, concern and services, construction, infrastructure, hotel, property, technology and plantation. put back 1 provides the rate of companies selected from each of the vault of heaven.There are seven operational variables which comprise of one dependent variable, three independent variables and three control variables as describe in turn off 2. board 2: Variables Measurements VariablesDefinition Dependent ARLAudit report lag free-living ACINDAC independence ACMEETAC meeting (ACdiligence) ACEXPAC expertise (AC experience) figure SIZECompany size AUDIT TYPEType of audit firm PROFProfitability Measurement Represents the number of days elapsing between the end of the monetary year of the company to the completion of the audit for the current year for each mortal firm (the audit report date)Percentage of non-executive directors to the tally of audit committee members Number of audit committee meeting No of audit committee member with telescope experience in financial reporting (such as MIA,MICPA) to the intact of audit committee members. Natural log of year end add assets Dummy variable, ‘? 1’? if auditor is one of the precedent Big-4 audit firms, ‘? 0’? otherwise PROF = rescue on asset, measured by net income split up with entirety assets 54 Pg6Pg6 4. Results 4. 1. Descriptive Statistic fudge 3: Descriptive Statistics for Audit Report Lag (N= 288) YearNMinimumMaximumMeanMedian 2007ARL28840. 00184. 00103. 14110. 50 008ARL28840. 00146. 00103. 42111. 00 2009ARL28836. 00136. 00102. 46110. 00 2007- 2009ARL86436. 00184. 00103. 00111. 00 Notes: ARL = number of days between the end of the fiscal year to the date of completion of audit As shown in confuse 3, the regard as sco re of audit report lag for the pooled sample is 103 days with a maximum and borderline days of 184 and 36 respectively. This indicates that on average, the companies took 103 days to complete their audit report. Using the pooled sample from period from period 2007 to 2009, the results indicate that the companies did adopt with Bursa Malaysia listing requirements and he Companies act where they submit their report within six months except for one company which took 184 days to submit the report. It shows that companies are improving over the years on the number of days taken to complete the annual reports. The results of this study are somewhat similar to Afify (2009) that found the maximum and mean score number of days to complete the annual report was one hundred fifteen days and 67 days respectively. The results indicate that the number of days that the companies took to complete the audit report has reduce from 2007-2009 by 48 days. Results on previous study show relative dif ference with the current study.Che-Ahmad and Abidin (2008) found that 442 days while Ahmad and Kamarudin (2003) reveal 273 days on the maximum of days to complete the annual report. Table 4: Number of companies and audit report lag for 2007 †2009 Audit report lagNo. ofNo. ofNo. of ARL (within)companiescompaniescompanies Year / percentage2007Percent2008Percent2009Percent 1 month (30 days)00. 0000. 0000. 00 2 months (60days)227. 64206. 94258. 68 3 months (90days)4214. 584114. 244114. 24 4 months (120days)19868. 7521173. 2620872. 22 5 months (150days)258. 68165. 56144. 86 6 months (180days)00. 0000. 0000. 00More than 180days10. 3500. 0000. 00 Total288100288100288100 Table 4 shows that for the three year period, no company has completed and submitted their annual report within a month. The results also show that for the three year period, 41 to 42 companies have completed and submitted their annual report within 3 months. None of the companies have submitted their audit reports exc eeding 6 months except for one company which managed to submit their audited report only after 184 days in year 2007. The results in Table 4 shows that close companies reports way ahead the date stipulated by Chapter 9 (9. 3a) of Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirement that the annual report shall be issued and submitted within a period not exceeding 6 months from the financial year end of the company. Such results indicated that the companies are concerned and realised that audited reports are useful for users’? 55 Pg7Pg7 decision-making. The results support the notion that riotous delay in publishing financial statements would increase uncertainty in relation to investment decisions(Ashton et al. 1987; Ahmad and Kamarudin, 2003). Table 5: Descriptive statistic for Audit Committee Characteristics and view VariablesIndependent VariableNMinimumMaximumMeanMedianStd. Deviation ACIND8640. 601. 000. 931. 000. 18 ACDIL8641. 0012. 004. 845. 001. 67 ACEXP8640. 001. 000. 400. 330. 19 Co ntrol variable SIZE TOTASSET (RM BILLION)8649 -336. 640. 790. 242. 86 TYPEAUD864010. 580. 000. 49 PROFITABILITY864-1. 8811. 0590. 030. 030. 40 Notes: ACINDP= percentage of non-executive directors to the total of audit committee members ACDIL= number of audit committee meeting ACEXP= no of audit committee member with background experience in financial reporting TOTASSET= total assets that the companies have at the end of the financial year.TYPEAUD= ‘? 1’? if audited by Big-4, ‘? 0’? if otherwise PROFITABILITY= net income shared with total assets Table 5 presents the characteristics of the audit committee among the listed companies. The results show that audit committee independence (ACIND) has a mean score 93 percent. The results also show that the listed companies minimum score of 60 percent of their audit committee member being represented by independent directors. The results indicate that the companies comply with the Bursa Malaysia listing requirement (2009) which requires a company to have majority of the audit committee members being ndependent directors. Although the requirement of Bursa Malaysia on the number of independent directors in a board of directors is different from MCCG’? s (2007) requirement, the requirement of Bursa Malaysia listing requirement prevails MCCG’? s requirements2. Table 5 also presents the results on the number of meetings held by the audit committee. The results show that almost all audit committee in the listed companies discharge their duties appropriately in which on average 5 meetings were being held.The highest number of meeting held by the audit committee during the three year period was 12 times. MCCG (2007) provides that companies should have their audit committee meeting at least 4 times a year. Table 5 also shows the mean score of audit committee expertise (ACEXP) as 0. 4 (40 percent). Such results indicate that most audit committee in the listed companies have audit committee members with experience in financial reporting. moreover 24 of the companies (2. 78 percent) formed their audit committee with members not having accounting qualification.The later results did not comply with requirements of Bursa Malaysia listing requirements and MCCG that states at least one member of the audit committee must fulfill the financial expertise requisite. In fact, two companies for the three year period have yet to comply with the requirement to have one of the audit committee members’? with financial expertise. 4. 2. coefficient of correlation Matrix Analysis Table 6 shows a non-significant value (0. 333) which is more than 0. 05, indicating data normality. establish on Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro Wilk tests, this study concludes that audit report lag is normally distributed. MCCG (2007) provides that, all members of the audit committee should be non-executive directors. 56 Pg8Pg8 Table 6: Normality turn out for Audit Report Lag Kolmogorov-SmirnovaShap iro-Wilk StatisticdfSig. StatisticdfSig. NARL0. 0348640. 0210. 9988640. 333 a. Lilliefors Significance fudge factor Table 7 shows no correlation problem among the variables since the value is less than 0. 5. The variance inflation factor (VIF) indicates all variables have a value down the stairs two which is within the acceptable range of 10. Table 7: Correlation Matrix Table ARLACDILACINDACEXPLog_AssetTYPEAUDROA ARL1 ACDIL0. 096**1 ACIND-0. 68*0. 0301 ACEXP-0. 0190. 0220. 0131 LOG_ASSET-0. 170**0. 093**0. 078*-0. 0031 TYPE AUD-0. 170**-0. 088**0. 010-0. 0210. 195**1 ROA-0. 076*0. 0330. 029-0. 032-0. 0210. 0061 **Correlation is significant at the 0. 01 level (2-tailed). * Correlation is significant at the 0. 05 level (2-tailed) Notes: ACINDP= percentage of non-executive directors to the total of audit committee members ACDIL= number of audit committee meeting ACEXP= no of audit committee member with background experience in financial reporting LOG_ASSET= congenital log of total as sets (in billions of ringgit Malaysia) TYPEAUD= ‘? 1’? f audited by Big-4, ‘? 0’? if otherwise ROA= net income divided with total assets 4. 3. Fixed Panel reverting This section presents the results of the fixed instrument panel regression using Eviews. The panel data analysis is an increasingly popular form of longitudinal data analysis among social and behavioral science researchers (Hsiao, 2003). A panel is a crosswise or group of people who are surveyed sporadically over a given time period. In this study, the group is the listed companies selected and the time is the duration of the data collected, which is the three year period of 2007 until 2009.Since the data is bound to be heterogeneity, the panel data technique could take such heterogeneity explicitly into account by allowing individual specific variables (Gujarati, 2003). Normal regression does not lay out firm’? s specific effect which would lead to variables being omitted and mis-s pecified the sticker (Fraser et al. 2005). Fixed effect model could overcome such problem by adjusting the effect through firm’? s specific interrupt by capturing immeasurable firm’? s specific characteristics (Fraser et al. 2005). Panel data provides more informative of data, division and efficiency.Under the panel data, the model is generated as follows: ARL = ?? 1ACINDP + ?? 2ACMEET + ?? 3ACEXP +?? 4SIZE+ ?? 5AUDTYPE +?? 6PROF + ?? it Table 8: Fixed Panel Regression Result VariableCoefficientProb. ACIND-0. 0217060. 001* ACDIL-0. 0098350. 899 ACEXP-0. 0400840. 001* LOG_ASSET-0. 1297820. 012* ROA-0. 0021460. 264 TYPEAUD0. 0025350. 294 C5. 7867340. 000 N864 57 Pg9Pg9 Table 8: Fixed Panel Regression Result †continued alter R-squared0. 802562 F-statistic12. 811 Prob(F-statistic)0. 000 Notes: ACINDP= percentage of non-executive directors to the total of audit committee members ACDIL=number of audit committee meetingACEXP= no of audit committee member with backgr ound experience in financial reporting LOG_ASSET= natural log of total assets (in billions of ringgit Malaysia) TYPEAUD= ‘? 1’? if audited by Big-4, ‘? 0’? if otherwise ROA= net income divided with total assets Adjusted R2= adjusted R2 coefficient determination F stat= indicate how a good deal variation is explained by the regression equation. *significant at 1%. Table 8 shows that the audit committee independence (ACINDP) and audit committee expertise (ACEXP) are significant at 1% level. Thus, accepting hypotheses one and three respectively.On the other hand, the results show that there is no relationship between audit committee diligence and audit report lag. Therefore, hypothesis two is rejected. The results indicate that audit committee independence and audit committee expertise may reduce on audit report lag but audit committee diligence could not tempt audit report lag. Carcello et al. (2000) found that audit committee independence and audit committ ee expertise have significant relationship with audit fee while audit committee diligence did not provide any relationship on audit fees.The results in this study shows significant relationship between audit independence and audit report lag which is similar to Klein (2002) that found that more independent audit committee members would effectively influence financial reporting quality. The results of this study support the view that audit committee with a simple majority of independent audit committee members are more likely to fulfill its duties effectively compared to an audit committee members that have no independent audit committee members.This is consistent with agency theory where independent members in an audit committee could assist principals to monitor the agents’? activities and reduce benefits from withholding information. They would have had provided more effective roles in monitoring the companies. Further, the number of financial experts on audit committee wil l reduce incident of maneuver (Farber, 2005). A member with financial expertise demonstrate a high level of financial reporting knowledge and thus expected to lead the committee, identify and ask knowledgeable questions that challenge management and external auditor (He et al. 009). In practice, it is a general notion that more meeting and discussion of the committee would improve the performance of the company. However, similar to the study done by Uzun et al. (2004), the results in this study show that the number of audit committee meeting held is not significantly associated with audit report lag. More frequent meeting that the company has does not necessarily provide better achievement to the companies. Thus, the company takes to ensure audit committee member raised and resolved issues with management during the meeting, and as a result improve the quality of reporting. . stopping point The results of this study show that audit committee characteristics: audit committee ind ependence and audit committee expertise contribute as important factors that affect audit report lag of the companies. Such results correspond to the resource based theory where those characteristics of audit committee as the resources and capabilities that may improve companies’? performance as well as on the corporate 58 Pg10Pg10 reporting.These two characteristics represent the Bursa Malaysia listing requirement that require audit committee compose of not fewer than 3 members with majority of them being independent directors and requires at least one member of the audit committee to have financial expertise requisite. Audit committees with those characteristics could assist the companies to be timely in their annual reporting. Finally, this study could not find significant link between audit committee meeting to audit report lag.This study suggests that audit committee could prioritise important things that need to be resolved during the meeting in order to improve the per formance of the company as well as in assuring audit report lag. This study is not without limitations. 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