Impact of Accounting Information System on Internal Audit Quality: Mediating Role of Organizational Culture

This study advances the Accounting Information System (AIS) study by exploring the relationship between the AIS internal audit quality. It develops a model based on literature and considers one significant variable of mediation that is organizational culture. The AIS is expected to influence internal audit quality in different contexts, particularly in developing countries. The research model validated using AMOS and SPSS version 25. Based on a sample of 183 internal auditors in Jordanian industrial SMEs, empirical findings support the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality; however, the impact is direct while the organizational culture partially mediates this relationship. The results indicate that the AIS help enhance internal auditors' quality and the organizational culture, ultimately improving internal audit quality. The implications are useful for academics, administrators, and policymakers interested in evaluating the impact of intervening variables on the AIS and the internal audit quality relationship.

in the Jordanian industrial sector have been chosen because of many businesses. Industrial SMEs account for 10% of Jordan's GDP (JEGP, 2018).
While several studies of internal audit quality research have been conducted, the researcher's awareness of the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality is still limited due to the changing organizational culture. However, there is a lack of empirical research based on AIS and internal audit quality in developing countries. As a result, this study explores the mediating impact of the organizational culture on the relationship between AIS and internal audit efficiency in the Jordanian industrial business. The findings of this research would be useful in designing effective operational strategies for local companies.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows; the literature review and the proposed conceptual model are set out in section 2. Section 3 sets out the research method that has driven research analysis. The results are given in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 provides for a detailed analysis of the main findings and concludes the paper.

AIS and Internal Audit Quality
AIS refers to systems operating data collection functions, processing, classification, and reporting financial activities to provide relevant information to maintain outcomes, guiding knowledge and decision-making (Brandas, Megan, & Didraga, 2015). The accounting documents' qualitative characteristic may also be preserved if an entity has a successful internal audit framework. Effective audit control helps the management of companies to use more positive information to conduct their business practices correctly and to assess the efficiency of the company (Turner, Weickgenannt, & Copeland, 2020).
Internal audit primary role in performing transactions financial reporting process and such AIS frameworks supported them in their work (Trigo, Belfo, & Esté banez, 2016). In the context of the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality, the previous studies found that AIS has a significant impact on internal audit quality (Almaliki, Rapani, Khalid, & Sahaib, 2019;Ogundana, Ojeka, Ojua, & Nwaze, 2017;Rapani & Malim, 2018). As a result, it found that the AIS have a profound impact on the efficacy of internal audit and internal control within organizations.

Organizational Culture and Internal Audit Quality
Organizational culture is also seen as a collection of core beliefs and values held by members of an organization (Kaouache, Brewer, & Kaouache, 2020). If these beliefs and values are clearly defined and firmly held, culture is considered a robust culture (Stephan & Pathak, 2016). Organizational culture is at the core of the organization's operations and affects its overall performance and the quality of its product/service (Salih & Hla, 2017). The literature on culture and audit process believes that the country's culture affects its audit environment, which eventually influences the audit process (Abdelahi et al., 2020). The previous studies showed that the organizational culture has a substantial effect on the quality of internal audit in the sense of the relationship between organizational culture and the internal audit quality (Abdelahi et al., 2020;Alzeban, 2014;Kaouache et al., 2020;Salih & Hla, 2017). As a result, the culture has had a significant influence on internal auditing quality within organizations.

AIS and Organizational Culture
The organizational culture element is the foundation for the best performing accounting information system (HA, 2020). Culture plays a significant role in developing a standard system of accounting information (Kwarteng & Aveh, 2018). The previous studies showed significant relationships between AIS and organizational culture (Aldegis, 2018; HA, 2020; Kwarteng & Aveh, 2018). As a result, the AIS have a significant impact on the culture of the organization. The organizational culture element is the foundation for the best performing accounting information system (HA, 2020). Culture plays a significant role in developing a standard system of accounting information (Kwarteng & Aveh, 2018). The previous studies showed significant relationships between AIS and organizational culture (Aldegis, 2018; HA, 2020; Kwarteng & Aveh, 2018). As a result, the AIS have a major impact on the culture of the organization.

Research Model and Hypotheses
There are numerous studies examining internal audit quality, including organizational culture and AIS (Abdelahi et al., 2020;Aldegis, 2018;Almaliki et al., 2019;Alzeban, 2014;HA, 2020). An analysis of the existing studies found that organizational culture and AIS play an important effect on internal audit quality. The research model is illustrated in figure 1, for examining the mediating role of organizational culture on the relationship between AIS and

Method
The data were gathered using a questionnaire; it consists of 12 questions regarding the research factors adopted from previous studies. For instance, AIS includes 4 adapted from Ayoub, Potdar, Rudra, and Luong (2020) and (Napitupulu, 2018), organizational culture include 4 items adapted from Gonzá lez-Rodrí guez, Martí n-Samper, Kö seoglu, and Okumus (2019) , Adeinat Iman and Abdulfatah Fatheia (2019), and Di Stefano, Scrima, and Parry (2019); and internal audit quality items adapted from Agyei-Mensah Ben (2019), Dao, Xu, and Liu (2019), and Beck, Gunn, and Hallman (2019). The respondents were asked to test their insight into the five-point Likert-scale research frameworks in which 5 symbolized 'strongly agree,' 4 symbolized 'agree,' 3 symbolized 'Neutral,' 2 symbolized 'Disagree,' and 1 symbolized 'Strongly disagree.' The questionnaire has been circulated to internal auditors of Jordanian industrial SMEs to evaluate their responses. Data were collected using the survey questionnaire. For sampling the respondents, a random sampling technique was used. A total of 240 questionnaires were distributed; only 183 were available; the response rate was 76.3%. The survey was performed in the conventional manner in which the participants were handed out the questionnaires in person. Due to the adequacy context, distribution assumptions, sample size, and design requirements, this study applied the AMOS and SPSS version 25.

Measurement Model
Measurement by Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO) of all factor loadings was greater than 0.50. The Cronbach alpha was used for internal consistency checking, with the variables described in Table 1. The overall condition at the cut-off was 0.7. Thus, the overall values were above 0.7, showing that the overall scale and the factors derived are adequate reliability (Al Shbail, Salleh, & Nor, 2018;Obeid, Salleh, & Nor, 2017;Sl Shbail, Salleh, Nor, & Nazli, 2018). The structural models were used as well as the measurement estimates. Thus, the content validity of the research constructs is presumed (see table 1). The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used for checking the convergent validity; The CFA results (RMSEA = 0.066; NFI= 0.903; CFI= 0.954; p = 0.000) suggested that the overall indices matched very well with the data and concluded that the research model is satisfactory (see Figure 2).

Hypothesis Testing
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS was employed to test the hypothesized construct. This study explored the structural model through AIS (as an exogenous construct), organizational culture, and internal audit quality (as endogenous constructs). Estimates of the structural coefficient provide the basis for evaluating the proposed hypotheses.
The AIS significantly and positively impacts the internal audit quality (β=.724, C.R=7.383, p<0.01), as illustrated in figure 3 and table 2. Thus the H1 is supported. This finding is consistent with Almaliki et al. (2019) and Rapani and Malim (2018).      Moreover, to observe the mediator role of organizational culture on the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality. The first phase involved the inclusion of the research constructs (AIS, organizational culture and internal audit quality (see figure 6 and Table 5), inclusion of the mediator construct (organizational culture) decreased the value of β and C.R in the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality (β=.496, C.R= 4.933, p>0.01). This indicates that organizational culture plays a partial mediation on the relationship between AIS and internal audit quality; thus, H4 is supported. This finding is in agreement with this obtained by (Hoque, 2018).