The effect of performance audit economy, efficiency and effectiveness criteria on the accountability level of Ardebil province executive agencies’ managers referred to in Article (5) of the Civil Service Management

Objective: The present study is an attempt to investigate the effect of performance audit criteria on accountability of managers in executive agencies of Ardabil province referred to in Article 5 of the Civil Service Management. Methodology: This study is applied in terms of objectives and descriptive in terms of nature and hypothesis testing. Data collection is carried out through library and field studies. The population of this study consists of 206 executive managers in Ardabil province referred to in Article (5) of the Civil Service Management. Due to specific size of the population, samples of 134 managers were selected through the Cochran formula. The disproportionate stratified random sampling method was used for sampling in this study. Results: The data were analyzed by The SPSS software. After making sure about the normal distribution of data, single-sample T-test was used to test and analyze the hypotheses of the study. Finally, the Friedman test was used to rank the variables of the study. Conclusion: The results obtained from all the hypotheses showed a significant difference between the average of samples and the average of the population, thus, we can say that the performance audit in the executive agencies, based on economy, efficiency and effectiveness criteria can affect the accountability level of managers.