Abstract

The audit committee performs a very important role in corporate governance. The main objective of this research is to enhance the audit committee effectiveness through, a comparison between codes and regulations of the Audit Committee in the U.K., U.S.A. and Egypt. Such comparison will highlight important issues related to Audit Committee activities and will result in modification to the existing Egyptian Code of Corporate Governance for Audit Committee. The importance of the research comes from the fact that the Audit Committee report became mandatory starting from 2009 for all listed companies in the EGX. The study conducted analyzed requirement in the British UK Code, The AICPA Audit Committee Toolkit: Public Companies and other research. Four hypotheses were developed and tested to assess the effect of Audit Committee characteristics including establishment and role, resources, skills and experience, Audit Committee relation with Board of Directors, financial reporting, internal control, whistle-blowing, internal audit function, external audit, annual audit cycle, and communication with shareholders on the effectiveness of the Audit Committee. For this reason, a survey was conducted to analyze the opinion of professionals like AC members, Accountants and Auditors, and the scholars in the education field for the improvement of Audit Committee in Egypt Code of Corporate Governance. Once data were collected, they were analyzed with the statistical software SPSS for implication for Egypt Code of Corporate Governance for Audit Committee. The data subjected to statistical analysis and procedures, including descriptive statistics, frequencies, percentages, mean, correlations and coefficient of variation. The overall analysis of the data gathered was strongly supportive of the 4 hypotheses. The researcher reached a conclusion, referring that, the regulatory initiative has a strong impact on the development of the Corporate Governance Code to be more comprehensive and detailed, on the road, to a proactive and more effective Audit Committee, which will empower the local investment environment and sustain higher rates of economic growth. The researcher recommends the deployment of the proposed provisions by the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority with continuous review of the Corporate Governance regulations every three years to catch up with the latest developments relative to the issue.

Department

Public Policy & Administration Department

Graduation Date

6-1-2010

Submission Date

May 2010

First Advisor

Bremer, Jennifer Ann

Second Advisor

Hegazy, Mohamed Abdel Aziz

Extent

NA

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Library of Congress Subject Heading 1

Audit committees -- Egypt.

Library of Congress Subject Heading 2

Corporate governce -- Egypt.

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

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