Ghana has enacted various policies and programmes, often with support from international agencies, to strengthen public sector financial management. These efforts aim to mitigate mismanagement and misappropriation of public financial resources, yet many reform policies have yielded suboptimal outcomes. A critical examination of Ghana's financial reform initiatives reveals a notable oversight: none adequately recognize the role of audit committees (ACs) as a governance mechanism, which diverges from international standards and best practices in public sector financial management. This study aims to identify and analyze the determinants influencing the effectiveness of ACs within Ghana’s public institutions. The research was motivated by persistent financial infractions and irregularities documented in the Auditor-General’s annual reports. An Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) approach was employed to facilitate a focus group session, through which data were gathered, analyzed, and interpreted. Key factors, or affinities, impacting AC effectiveness were identified, including AC member characteristics, inter-stakeholder coordination, funding allocation, meeting frequency and attendance, AC independence, internal audit function (IAF) autonomy, institutional management commitment, the nature of the audited institution, regulatory policies governing ACs, political influence, professional competence of internal auditors, and the quality of quality control processes and recommendations. These affinities were validated through participant interpretation and researcher refinement. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on public sector audit governance by addressing a critical gap concerning the role of ACs in Ghana. By establishing an effective governance mechanism, this research seeks to enhance the strategic oversight and accountability of public financial resources in Ghana’s public institutions.
The prospectus, as the primary vehicle for issuers to disclose information to the public, plays a crucial role in protecting investors’ rights. Review inquiries serve as an important tool to ensure the quality of the prospectus, as the inquiry and feedback mechanism helps to identify potential risks and enhance the quality of information disclosure. This paper, based on the theory of responsive regulation and the attention-based view, takes companies applying for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR) Market and ChiNext Board between 2019 and 2023 as the research samples. Using text analysis methods such as the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model and dictionary-based methods, this study measures the intensity of review inquiries and the extent of information disclosure. It examines the impact of inquiry topics on the disclosure of corresponding information in the prospectus and explores the moderating effects of company ownership structure, sponsor reputation, and auditor reputation on these relationships. Empirical results indicate that: (1) an increase in the formality of review inquiries enhances the optimization of information disclosure in the prospectus; (2) the focus of review inquiries on specific topics has a significant positive impact on the update of relevant information disclosure in the prospectus; and (3) at the ownership structure level, state-owned enterprises dampen the positive influence of review inquiries on the textual features of the prospectus.
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