Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic period on internal audit practices: a qualitative research on universities

During the pandemic period, changes were made in business mo- dels both in the public and private sectors. The internal audit units of the universities, where different measures were taken in the educational ac- tivities and the functioning of the administrative units, were also affected by the process and different internal audit practices were carried out. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of the pandemic on in- ternal auditing in universities. In the qualitative research method, in- depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview form, and the data were subjected to content analysis with a phenomenology study. Participants were reached by snowball sampling and purposive sampling method and interviews were conducted with internal auditors from 11 different universities, face-to-face and in virtual environment. By categorizing the data, the data were analyzed, and the main themes and sub-themes were created. During the pandemic period, five main themes emerged in internal audit at universities: “communication”, “process management”, “technology use”, “bureaucratic situation” and “psycho-social situation”. As a result, it was concluded that information technologies started to be used intensively in the way of working during the pandemic period, but the remote audit mechanism should be used as a complement to traditional auditing, except in crisis periods.