ABSTRACT
Sustainable development has gained significant attention worldwide. Organizations across various sectors, including educational institutions, are increasingly recognizing the need to integrate sustainability principles into their operations. Saudi Arabia, with its commitment to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is no exception. As Saudi universities strive to align themselves with sustainable practices, the role of the internal auditor becomes crucial in ensuring the effective implementation and achievement of sustainable development goals within these academic institutions. This study aims to understand and investigate the mediating role of the relationship between internal auditing and sustainable development in Saudi universities. The data were collected from a survey to explore the current role of internal auditors in achieving sustainable development goals in universities. The significance level was determined by the t-Test value analyzed through SPSS v20. The null hypothesis may reject, and accept the alternative hypothesis if the significance level was less than 0.05 and the T value was positive. Mean and standard deviation were used to summarize the descriptive data. The result indicates the important variables in sustainability audits and provides a proposed framework for implementing sustainable audits. The international focus has grown on sustainable growth. Organizations in a variety of industries, including educational institutions, are progressively recognizing the need to incorporate sustainability principles into their operations. Saudi universities aspire for sustainability; hence the internal auditor is vital to achieving sustainable development objectives. The focus of the study appears to be Saudi universities, which may limit its applicability to other regions or types of educational institutions.
Keywords: Environmental, Internal audit, Sustainable development, Social and Governance risks.
Citation: Essa GTK. (2023). Evaluating the role of the internal auditor in achieving the goals of sustainable development in Saudi Universities - a field study, Can. J. Bus. Inf. Stud., 5(6), 134-141. https://doi.org/10.34104/cjbis.023.01340141
