Socioemotional wealth and internal audit in family firms: trade-off between economic and non-economic goals

Abstract

The paper considers that the internal auditing role in family firms is unique owing to the overlap and ambiguity of roles between the family and the firm. Besides, family firms’ characteristics seem to influence the internal audit role. In this context, internal auditing must effectively deal with the factors leading to conflict in family firms.
The study aims to emphasize the interpretation of the internal audit role in family businesses, and the article suggests a specific role for the internal audit that is the trade-off between economic aspirations and socioemotional wealth dimensions.
In order to achieve this objective, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to internal auditors, chief financial officers, and certified public accountants of Algerian family businesses. The results reveal that the cognitive role had the highest mean score (3.04), followed by the trade-off between economic and non-economic goals (2.79) and the disciplinary role (2.64).