This study examines whether political connections condition the effectiveness of the internal audit function (IAF) in constraining earnings management (EM) among Saudi-listed non-financial companies. Drawing on agency theory and resource dependence theory, the study conceptualises IAF as an internal governance mechanism that reduces information asymmetry and managerial opportunism. At the same time, political connections represent an external resource and power mechanism that may weaken the disciplinary consequences of formal governance. The study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional survey framework involving chief audit executives, internal audit managers, and senior finance officers. The source manuscript reports 132 usable responses and applies mean-centred ordinary least squares regression, interaction analysis, simple-slope analysis, bootstrapping, and Johnson–Neyman analysis. Importantly, the numerical results are simulated rather than obtained from verified empirical observations. Within the simulation, IAF is negatively associated with EM (? = ?0.421, p < .001), political connections are positively associated with EM (? = 0.238, p < .001), and the IAF × PC interaction is positive and significant (? = 0.176, p = .004). The interaction adds 3.5% to explained variance. Simple slopes show that the negative IAF–EM relationship is strongest at low political-connection levels (? = ?0.597) and weakest at high levels (? = ?0.245), an attenuation of approximately 59%. The study contributes a contextual governance perspective by proposing that formal internal controls may operate differently under strong informal political embeddedness.
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