Explanation of supervisory indicators of audit committees

Currently, managing and supervising the activities of public joint-stock companies is one of the main issues in the economic system of various countries, including Iran. Thus, in many countries, corporate governance policies play an important role and the audit committee, as one of the committees of the board of directors in public companies, plays a key role in establishing and overseeing these policies. Since one of the most important duties and responsibilities of the audit committee is its supervisory role and the responsibility for monitoring all financial activities of the company, it is necessary to explain indicators to evaluate the supervisory function of audit committees. This study aims to explain supervisory indicators to evaluate the performance of audit committees, to formulate the supervisory indicators in the form of a questionnaire. To this end, the indicators were developed and tested by surveying professional and academic experts and also members of the audit committees of firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange and the Iranian OTC Market. The results showed that the supervisory indicators of audit committees in the Iranian capital market encompass four dimensions including supervision on financial reporting processes, supervision on internal controls, supervision on internal audit, and supervision on the independent auditor. Besides, these dimensions were categorized into 21 sub-indicators.