A study of the relationship between the views of responsible specialists on the internal control of COSO (2013) and the quality of financial reporting

The present paper aims to investigate the impact of internal controls COSO (2013) on the quality of financial reporting with concentration of the relationship between prespectives of experts responsible for designing and deploying internal control with financial reporting quality criteria. In addition, as with the management responsibility regarding the design and deployment of internal controls, the views of these experts on the internal controls affecting the financial reporting is compared with the views of other internal control specialists. The study was an applied descriptive survey employing a Likert-scale questionnaire designed and validated by the researcher. The questionnaire included 77 questions on the five internal control elements and their seventeen principles. It was distributed among a randomly selected sample of 431 subjects including 101 specialists in charge of the design and deployment of internal control and 330 other internal control specialists. The gathered data was analyzed using structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicate that all internal controls of COSO (2013) have affected the financial reporting quality of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange, and the views of the responsible professionals has a positive and significant relationship with voluntary accruals and the ability to predict profits as the criteria for financial reporting quality. Also, the views of the two above-mentioned specialists do not have a significant difference. The employ of the internal controls of COSO (2013) in the Iranian capital market and the positive views of the practitioners in charge in this regard will improve the quality of financial reporting. Contribution: The research results provide a new insight on the capability of the use of the internal controls of COSO (2013) in the Iranian capital market. .