Audit Committee Effectiveness and Audit Report Lag in Oman

This study investigates whether there is an association between audit committee effectiveness, measured by audit committee independence, size, expertise, and meetings, and audit report lag for companies listed on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM). Data were collected from 110 companies in the financial year 2009. Descriptive analysis was used to provide insight into the time taken by external auditors to complete the audit work. The results showed that, on average, 51 days were taken to accomplish external audit function. Meanwhile, the minimum was 18 days and the maximum was 76 days. In addition, regression analysis was performed to provide empirical evidence on which variables of effective audit committee had significant impact on audit report lag. The results showed that audit committee independence was negatively related to audit report lag. Moreover, there was a negative relationship between audit committee expertise and audit report lag. The other two variables of effective audit committee (audit committee size and frequency of audit committee meetings) were found to have insignificant association with audit report lag.