Title: Career mobility between audit institutions and audited public entities: conflict of interest analysis
Authors: Dr. Mategeko Betty
Ahumuza Audrey
Dr. Twinomujuni Rosebell
Volume: 10
Issue: 7
Pages: 630-640
Publication Date: 2026/07/28
Abstract:
Public sector auditing is a cornerstone of democratic accountability, and its credibility rests on the demonstrable independence and objectivity of those who perform it. This study interrogated a specific and under-examined threat to that independence: the movement of professional staff between audit institutions and the public entities that those institutions are mandated to audit. Anchored in a Christian institutional setting that emphasised stewardship, truthfulness, and accountability as expressions of faith-informed professional ethics, the study set out to establish whether such career mobility was systematically associated with heightened perceptions of conflict of interest (COI) among audit professionals, and to identify the factors that most strongly predicted the severity of perceived conflict. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was adopted. A structured, pre-tested questionnaire was administered to 240 purposively and proportionately sampled respondents drawn from supreme audit institutions, internal audit units of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), private audit firms contracted to the public sector, and public accounts oversight bodies. Data were analysed using univariate statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations) to profile respondents and describe mobility patterns; bivariate statistics (Pearson chi-square tests of independence, Cramer's V, and Spearman's rank correlation) to test associations between mobility variables and perceived COI severity; and ordinal logistic regression (proportional-odds model) to identify independent predictors of perceived COI severity while controlling for rank and experience. Results showed that 54.6 percent of respondents had experienced some form of cross-movement between an audit institution and an audited entity, and that movement from an audit institution into an audited entity was associated with markedly higher perceived COI severity than the reverse direction or no movement at all (chi-square = 146.17, df = 4, p < 0.001; Cramer's V = 0.552). The ordinal logistic regression model, which explained approximately 40.2 percent of the variance in perceived COI severity (McFadden pseudo-R2 = 0.402), showed that movement from an audit institution to an audited entity increased the odds of higher perceived COI severity more than seventeen-fold (adjusted odds ratio = 17.63, 95% CI: 4.94-62.95, p < 0.001), that non-disclosure of a prior relationship more than tripled those odds (AOR = 3.12, 95% CI: 1.69-5.74, p < 0.001), and that every additional year of an observed cooling-off period reduced the odds by approximately 41 percent (AOR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.46-0.77, p < 0.001). The study concluded that career mobility, particularly in the direction of audit institution to audited entity, constituted a material and statistically significant threat to perceived audit independence, and that this threat was substantially moderated by mandatory disclosure and adequately enforced cooling-off periods (Julius & Geofrey, 2025a, 2025b; Julius & Mategeko, 2025b; Julius & Twinomujuni, 2025c; Osuman & Julius, 2023; Peace & Julius, 2023). The study recommended the institutionalization of a minimum enforceable cooling-off period, mandatory and audited disclosure of prior employment relationships, and the integration of a Christian ethics-based stewardship module into professional audit training to reinforce internalized, rather than merely regulatory, safeguards against conflict of interest.