Kato Plant

Improving the business communication skills of postgraduate internal audit students: A South African teaching innovation

This article reports on the introduction of a business communication course in the curriculum of postgraduate internal audit students at a higher education institution in South Africa. Internal auditors should have excellent verbal and written communication skills in performing value-adding assurance and consulting services to their engagement clients. A hands-on applied business communication course was developed in collaboration with a number of stakeholders to improve the communication skills of postgraduate internal audit students using the action research methodology. Data were gathered from these students to determine the benefits of an applied business communication course. The study found that a learning need had been addressed and that an applied business communication course has several benefits, such as promoting teamwork, building confidence, improving presentation skills and ultimately preparing postgraduate students for communicating effectively at work.

Developing early career professional auditors at work: What are the determinants of success?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the determinants of internal audit workplace learning success for developing early career internal audit professionals in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research design was used to collect data through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews from 65 internal audit stakeholders including internal audit employers’ early career; internal auditors’ workplace learning assessors; and presenters and members of the education and training committee of the professional body in South Africa on their experiences of the determinants of workplace learning success for internal auditors. Findings In line with workplace learning theories, it was found that there are five determinants of internal audit workplace success: the learning environment, management support, the early career internal auditors’ commitment (attitude and motivation to learn) and a relevant, structured and effective formal workplace learning programme. Practical implications Internal audit employers, early career internal auditors, workplace learning assessors and presenters as well as the Institute of Internal Auditors globally and in South Africa can use the results of this study as a benchmark for their internal audit workplace learning practices. Originality/value This paper provides insight into the determinants of workplace learning success for internal auditors and contributes to the limited body of knowledge in auditing on developing professional competence in the workplace.

A framework for managing and assessing ethics in Namibia : an internal audit perspective

The Namibian Governance Code was implemented in 2014 and calls for organisations to manage ethics effectively. This study proposes an ethics framework that can be used by management to build an ethical culture and used by internal auditors to assess the effectiveness of an organisation’s ethical culture. Data was collected from managers and senior internal auditors in the financial services industry, based on their views of the proposed ethics framework. Management agreed that such a framework could contribute to building an ethical organisational culture because there is a lack of guidance available. Internal auditors agreed that the framework could assist the IAF in assessing ethics. However, it appears that this practice in Namibia is limited to an assessment of the codes of conduct only. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of reporting on ethics performance to stakeholders, primarily because participants’ organisations did not implement integrated reporting as yet.