The Rise of Sustainable Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies: Perspective of Government Auditor Capacity and Legislation

As part of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ecosystem, this paper evaluates fundamental success factors that influence external auditors and relevant stakeholders to be proactive and efficacious in sustaining corporate governance practices in emerging economies. The study presents a conceptual policy framework aimed at enhancing sustainable corporate governance, to ensure effective auditing in the public sector, by applying an extensive approach based on agency and corporate risk management theories. Applying an online qualitative technique, exploratory focus groups were held in three countries. The participants were selected by their respective Supreme Audit Institutions, based on their experience and proficiency in public sector auditing. Among the fundamental success factors identified were capacity building for auditors, poor governance arrangement at SOEs, outdated legislative requirements, skills and specialisation of auditors, continuous training of auditors, synergy between external and internal auditors, financial and logistical constraints, expertise required for audit assignments, understanding of auditee systems/environments and institutional experience, collaboration with stakeholders, lack of commitment culture of auditee leadership, technology limitations, and unhealthy accountability ecosystem and human resources. Validation interviews were conducted after the success factors to improve the suggested government auditor capacity policy framework were determined. The executive governments, legislatures, legislative oversight bodies, citizens, and worldwide communities can benefit greatly from the empirical segment of this study to enhance sustainable corporate governance in emerging economies and obtain greater contributions from government auditors.