Introduction and Testing of the Application of a Risk-Based Model in Operational Auditing

The main objective of this dissertation is the introduction of a risk-based model for operational auditing and testing its application in solving problems such as amount of fee, verification time allocation and planning of an operational audit engagement. The Government Audit Organization standards on risk concept, evidence and materiality are applied in the introduced model. The riskbased model, as a tool of planning, assists the auditors in proceeding to an acceptable assurance level. The introduced model is applied in seven audit engagement and collected data from those engagement are compared with 10 audit engagement performed by Audit Organization during 2001 to 2007 and effectivness, efficiency and economy of the model is measured. Effectiveness is defined as the accomplished results, efficiency is defined as the way that results are accomplished and economy is defined as the reduction of cost of the engagements. This research is qualitative, application oriented and based on constructivism philosophy . The approach of the research is deduction- induction and the strategy of the study is action research. Time horizon of research is longitudal. In order to test the hypothesis , essential data is collected by likert questionnaire and verification evidence of audits files. In this research SPSS NO.13 and Mann- Whitney and Wilcoxon non-parametric tests are used. The results of the study confirms following the hypothesis of the dissertation as follows: Using risk – based model increase the acceptable level of assurance, acceptable level of materiality and facilitates the preparation of the budget on the basis of the standards of operational auditing process. Using the risk- based model increases the efficiency index of "number of deficiencies / number of teams member" and "number of offers / number of teams member" in operational auditing process. Using the risk- based model decreases the economy index of " actual hours / budgeted hours " in operational auditing process.