Exploring the internal audit of public procurement governance: a systematic literature review

This study reviews post-2000 literature on the role of internal audit on public procurement governance, focusing on its development, critiques, and future directions through a systematic analysis of 68 articles published between 2001 and 2024. The internal audit is crucial to enhancing governance in public procurement by fostering transparency, accountability, and efficiency. This study reveals substantial academic progress in internal audit research with important breakthroughs occurring between 2018 and 2023. The use of technology like big data analytics and robotic process automation has enhanced fraud detection and operational efficiency in procurement operations. Notwithstanding these improvements, problems endure, including constrained resources, deficient institutional capacities, and inadequate auditor training. The results underscore the significance of multidisciplinary methodologies, integrating accounting, technology management, and public sector perspectives to rectify governance deficiencies. This study represents a varied geographical distribution, with the majority findings in Africa, Asia and Europe. This research proposes the development of an integrated theoretical framework, institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and stewardship theory to address the limitations of the existing theoretical frameworks. The practical consequences are implementing risk-based audit methodologies, enhancing auditor independence, and encouraging inter-organizational cooperation to reinforce public procurement supervision. This research offers policymakers and practitioners concrete insights to enhance integrity and efficiency in public sector governance through the integration of ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sophisticated methodology. Future research needs extensive regional research, sustainable governance frameworks, and legislative reforms prioritizing transparency, accountability, and efficiency.