Declaration

I, Ibrahim Al-Lehaidan, declare that the PhD thesis entitled Audit Committee Effectiveness: Australia and Saudi Arabia, is no more than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, figures, appendices, references, headers and footnotes. This thesis does not include any material that has been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree. Except where otherwise stated, this thesis is my own work. iii The mere presence of the audit committee does not necessarily translate into an effective monitoring body. As a result, the search for mechanisms to enhance corporate governance and increase the quality of financial reports has mostly focused on the structure of audit committees. This thesis empirically investigates whether there is an association between audit committee effectiveness (ACE) and the selection of a high quality auditor for both Australian and Saudi listed companies using their local guidelines to enhance ACE a