THE EFFECT OF INDEPENDENT AUDIT QUALITY ON COMPANY PROFITABILITY: BIST100 TECHNOLOGY SECTOR EXAMPLE

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of audit quality on financial performance using the data of 10companies operating in the technology sector of Borsa Istanbul (BIST) between 2018 and 2022. Technology companiesoften have operations with high risk and uncertainty, which increases the need for strong internal control and auditprocesses. In this context, internal control, internal audit, risk analysis group, audit opinion as independent variablesrepresenting audit quality, and Net Profit Margin, Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) ratios asdependent variables representing companies' financial performance were used. Correlation and regression analyses wereused to examine these relationships. Stepwise regression results showed that the internal control variable significantlyincreased the explanatory power of the model and was statistically significant. The correlation analysis with ROA revealeda significant relationship between the internal control variable and ROA. In addition, the internal control variable has asignificant effect on Net Profit Margin, while the other variables do not show a significant effect.<br>