Bibliometric Analysis of Performance Audit Research in the Public Sector: Key Insights

This research examines trends in public sector performance audit research from time to time. This research uses a bibliometric method that examines the number of publications each year, influential sources, influential authors, trending topics, co-occurrences, thematic evolution, and co-authors using VOSviewer and Bibliometric R software. The findings show that research in the last decade (2013-2023) has experienced enhancement. Keywords related to the public sector, audit performance, accountability, audit, effectiveness, supreme audit institution, audit performance, efficiency, and internal audit have experienced significant development. There are changes in research themes from period to period, which reflect changes in researchers’ interests. However, the themes of “performance audit” and “public sector” remained consistent over the period. This research contributes as a guide for researchers studying the topic of performance audits in the public sector in the future so that it becomes a policy for governments and companies in allocating research budgets on this topic. In addition, this research contributes to government policy in the field of performance audits in the public sector. Future research can be carried out on a literature review of this topic with an exploratory aspect, namely the network of countries and institutions that contribute most to performance auditing in the public sector. Apart from that, future research can be carried out using other literature review methods, namely meta-analysis. Topics that have opportunities and need to be studied further are corporate social responsibility, public audits, external audits, state audits, and the effectiveness of internal audits.