Stakeholders' approach on government auditing in the supreme audit institutions of Japan and Korea

From a stakeholder theory approach, this paper reports on a comparative case study between the Board of Audit of Japan (BOAJ) and the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAIK) on how to balance independence and responses to stakeholders' needs within their limited resources. The empirical results show that the BOAJ maintains its independence partially adapting to political pressure: neither the Diet nor citizens have a mandate to enforce audits on requested issues. On the other hand, the BAIK meets citizens' needs through screening instruments to maintain independence and political neutrality, while responding to audit requests from the National Assembly.