The impact of senior management on internal audit activities and its reflection in mitigating financial fraud – field study

The study aimed to test the effect of senior management (SM) in supporting internal audit activities (IA) and its reflection in mitigating financial fraud (FF), as a field study on a sample of banks and insurance companies listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange. For the purpose of achieving the objectives of the study, a sample of to collect data, the researcher prepared a questionnaire for this purpose, and it was distributed to the study sample individuals. And the effect between the variables of the study by using the statistical program (SPSS) and the statistical program (AMOS: Ver. 22) was used to measure these direct and indirect effects between the variables of the study, and to identify the level of significance of the direct and indirect relationships between those variables the odds method was used The Great (Maximum Likelihood). The study finds that SM and IA activities act as critical organizational factors for managing FF in organizations. Our findings indicate that appropriate SM support leads to better opportunities for fraud prevention and detection by expanding the scope of IA activities, the study recommended increasing and expanding support for IA\'s activities due to the importance of the results achieved from this support in mitigating FF.