Internal Auditors’ Role Conflict Management Model

The role of internal auditors is constantly changing and evolving. There are inherent role conflicts in internal auditing and management of inconsistent demands from customers or stakeholders of the internal audit department can help its effectiveness and create added value for the organization. The purpose of this research is to understand the role of conflict management strategies that internal auditors use to achieve a theory in this field and for this purpose, the qualitative research method and Grounded theory approach have been used. Research data were collected through interviews with internal audit managers and were analyzed by open, axial, and selective coding. Then the extracted categories were presented in the form of an integrated model of internal auditors’ role conflict management. Based on this model, to manage role conflict by internal auditors, it is necessary to strengthen the skills and awareness of stakeholders (as role senders) and internal auditors (as role receivers). By improving these factors, effective role conflict management strategies, improvement of context, and the effectiveness and development of the internal audit profession will be possible