BANGI, 23 March – On Friday, 14 March 2025, a session involving industry and academic experts was conducted by the Fundamental Research Grants Scheme (FRGS) 2023 Research Team, which is led by Assoc. Professor Dr Noor Marini Haji Abdullah and her team, comprising of Dr Hisham Mahamud and Mrs Rabaatul Azira Hassan at Bangi Selangor. The objective of the session is to explore whether providing joint audit and non-audit services compromises auditor independence and thus affects audit quality. Two experts were invited to the session, one of them is an industry expert, Dr Nur Mazilah Dato’ Mahzan, and the other one is an academic expert, Prof. Dr Wan Nordin Wan Hussin.

Currently, Dr Nur Mazilah is an authority member of the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) and an independent non-executive director of two Malaysian publicly listed companies. She was formerly the CEO of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA). On the other hand, Professor Dr Wan Nordin Wan Hussin is a professor of accounting and corporate governance at Taylor's University. Previously, he was a professor of accounting and corporate governance at Universiti Utara Malaysia. He has published in high-quality, reputable journals (Web of Science-Q1/ABDC-A/ABS-3/Scimago Q1).

The session was conducted for 2 and a half hours filled with productive and constructive discussions. Having these two experts in the session has “broken the ice” of the practice, jointly providing the assurance and non-assurance services by incumbent auditors.

Prepared by:
Associate Professor Dr Noor Marini Haji-Abdullah
Principal Investigator
600-RMC/FRGS 5/3 (161/2023)