The Lived Experiences of Internal Auditors in Frontier Markets: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Typology Study from Zambia

This study explores the lived experiences of internal auditors in frontier-market contexts, drawing empirical insights from firms listed on the Lusaka Securities Exchange in Zambia. Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, the research moves beyond technical and structural accounts of internal auditing to examine how internal audit work is experienced, interpreted, and embodied in everyday organizational life. Guided by van Manen’s four lived existentials lived space, lived time, lived relations, and lived body, the study constructs a phenomenologically grounded typology of internal audit functions. Five interconnected typologies emerge: episodic, cyclical, and crisis-driven internal audit functions; resource-constrained internal audit functions; constrained and symbolic internal audit functions; emotionally embodied outsourced and co-sourced internal audit functions; and managerial-capture, harmony-based governance internal audit functions. The findings reveal that internal audit practice in frontier markets is deeply shaped by spatial constraints, crisis-oriented temporalities, relational power dynamics, and emotionally embodied ethical work. Internal audit functions are shown to be not merely organizational structures but lived worlds in which professional identity, independence, and moral responsibility are continuously negotiated. By foregrounding the experiential and human dimensions of internal auditing, the study contributes a nuanced interpretive framework for understanding governance practices in frontier markets and extends phenomenological scholarship in internal auditing.