The Jurisdiction of Internal Auditing and the Quest for Professionalization: The Danish Case

For decades, the Institute of Internal Auditors has promoted the professionalization of internal auditing. Prior research on the subject has focused mainly on the achievement of professional characteristics as an indicator of the degree of professionalism. The results seem to vary suggesting that focus should be on exploring the contextual dependency of the professionalization of internal auditing. Based on a case study of Danish internal auditing, this paper analyzes the process of professionalization through the lenses of Abbott's theory of the system of professions. From this perspective, the process of professionalization is driven by inter‐professional competition with the external audit profession over the internal audit jurisdiction. The results indicate that in the Danish case external auditing has maintained an intellectual jurisdiction over internal auditing by controlling its knowledge base, thus preventing Danish internal auditing from obtaining a distinct jurisdiction of its own.