The Impact of the Characteristics of Public Institutions’ Executive Auditors and Audit Office Organizations on Integrity Assessments

The government has been evaluating the overall integrity levels of public institutions to promote and support anti-corruption efforts at all levels, including improving vulnerable areas and spreading integrity awareness and culture. However, despite these integrity assessments, recent corruption cases in public institutions have become a social issue, and the appointment of unprofessional executive auditors continues to be controversial regardless of the administration. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the impact of the characteristics of executive auditors and audit office organizations in public institutions on the results of integrity assessments. To this end, a panel data set was constructed using the integrity evaluation results from the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and the performance reports of executive auditors in public institutions from 2019 to 2023. An ordered probit model was employed to empirically analyze the impact of the characteristics of executive auditors and audit office organizations on the integrity evaluation results. The analysis results showed that the personal characteristics of the executive auditor, such as experience, age, and education, did not have a statistically significant impact on the integrity evaluation results. On the other hand, among the characteristics variables of the audit organization, it was found that the higher the budget ratio of the audit office to the total budget of the institution and the larger the number of staff in the audit office, the more likely the institution is to receive a higher comprehensive integrity grade. Additionally, while the professionalism of the executive auditor and the audit department did not affect integrity, high ethics and independence had a positive impact on integrity. In other words, it was estimated that the budget ratio of the audit office to the total budget of the institution, the number of staff in the audit office, and the ethics and independence of the audit department have a more important impact on integrity than the personal characteristics of the executive auditor.