Facilitating internal audit quality and improving the performance of medical clinics

IMPACTThis article advances a new form of leadership—audit leadership—for cultivating internal audit quality in medical clinics. Twehe authors document the power of audit leadership, manifested by two facets—professional and relational behaviours—for developing a work environment in which people develop interpersonal trust and psychological safety, which is conducive for internal audit quality. The authors show how managers of medical clinics can shape a work environment in which internal audit is embraced and supported in ways that can help the units to perform at higher levels. Importantly, internal audit, often viewed as an unproductive organizational function, enables learning, process improvement and is a deterrence against potential transgressions. This article will be of particular interest to financial, accounting and management scholars, as well as professional auditors, managers, accountants and financial experts.ABSTRACTThis article provides a novel contribution to the literature of public sector organizations in general and healthcare organizations in particular. The authors explore the ways leaders help facilitate internal audit quality and drive work performance by employing a mixed-methods approach in which qualitative data was collected to construct a new concept—audit-enabling leadership—followed by time-lagged data collected from multiple respondents. The findings indicate that two facets—professional and relational behaviours— constitute audit-enabling leadership.KEYWORDS: Internal auditlearningmedical clinic performanceprofessionalismpsychological safetyrelational leadership AcknowledgementsWe thank Public Money & Management’s editors and two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their helpful comments and suggestion. In addition, we thank Ayala Cohen and Etti Doveh for their help with the data analysis. We also acknowledge the financial support from the Jeremy Coller Foundation and the Henry Crown Institute of Business Research in Israel. We also acknowledge the editorial work of Gerda Kessler.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsMalka ZisuMalka Zisu is an independent scholar. She earned her PhD from Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is an expert on audit and has held executive and professional roles in this area in the healthcare system. Her research interest focuses on internal audit system and processes in medical settings.Natalie SheferNatalie Shefer is at the Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research sits at the intersection of three domains of strategic management scholarship: executive personality, corporate governance and strategic decision-making.Abraham CarmeliAbraham Carmeli is faculty member at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His current research interests include leadership and top management teams, relational dynamics, learning from failures, knowledge creation and creativity and innovation in the workplace.