The purpose of this paper is to analyze the perception held by attendees about the role and the effectiveness of their audit committees.,The investigation was conducted via a qualitative methodology through the content analysis of interviews conducted with 33 attendees of audit committee meetings of Tunisian listed companies.,The findings reveal that audit committees do not have the means to achieve the objectives that they have been given by the legal texts, which are likely to characterize their work as “ceremonial” or “symbolic.” This paper also found that the most significant effects of the audit committee chair’s role come through informal meetings and conversations.,The paper’s findings have policy implications for regulators. Findings from this research may allow regulators to assess whether the audit committee activities in Tunisian companies meet their expectations.,This paper tries to fill a gap in the extant literature and provides meaningful information on activities performed by audit committees and the extent to which they are perceived effective in the eyes of attendees of audit-committee meetings. This study is one of the few field investigations that have analyzed audit committees’ effectiveness in emerging markets through interviews with attendees involved in audit-committee processes.

中文翻译：

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审核委员会的角色：正式仪式或有效的监督程序？

本文的目的是分析与会人员对审计委员会的作用和有效性的看法。通过定性的方法，通过对与突尼斯上市公司审计委员会33名与会人员进行访谈的内容分析，进行调查调查结果表明，审计委员会没有手段实现法律文本所规定的目标，而这些目标很可能将其工作描述为“礼仪性”或“象征性”。本文还发现，审计委员会主席的角色最重要的影响来自非正式会议和对话。该论文的发现对监管机构具有政策意义。这项研究的结果可能使监管机构能够评估突尼斯公司审计委员会的活动是否符合他们的期望。在审核委员会会议的参加者看来是有效的。这项研究是为数不多的现场调查之一，通过与参与审计委员会程序的参与者进行访谈，分析了审计委员会在新兴市场中的有效性。