Internal auditors’ moral courage: a cognitive mapping method

This paper aims to enhance understanding of the main drivers of internal auditors’ moral courage to speak up about sensitive information and their cause-and-effect relationships. We use cognitive mapping method to analyze twenty chief audit executives’ cognitive maps in Tunisia. A collective map was grounded through assembling the full individual maps. Using the Decision Explorer software for our analysis, we find that the state hope, whistle-blowing policy, self-efficacy, perceived supervisor support and independence of internal audit function are the main drivers for internal auditors’ moral courage. Our findings are also supplemented by semi-structured interviews. Our paper offers a novel methodological contribution to auditing literature as well as new empirical evidence (contribution to knowledge) on the drivers of internal auditors’ moral courage.