Rob Melville

The European literature review on internal auditing

Purpose – By conducting the 2006 global Common Body of Knowledge (CBOK) study, The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) attempts to better understand the expanding scope of internal auditing practice throughout the world. The purpose of this review of recent internal auditing literature in Europe is to document how the internal audit function is changing in response to the shifts in global business practices.Design/methodology/approach – The literature in Europe is reviewed with a focus on developments that have implications for the expanded scope of internal auditing and the changing skill sets of internal auditors and their role in enhancing good corporate governance. This focus has implications for CBOK 2006.Findings – The literature indicates changes in the activities performed by internal auditors. The increasing complexity of business transactions, a more dynamic regulatory environment in Europe, and significant advances in information technology have resulted in opportunities and challenges for int...

Are internal auditing practices related to the age of the internal audit function?: Exploratory evidence and directions for future research

Purpose - This study seeks to analyze and explore whether the organizational profile, the size of the internal audit function (IAF) and internal audit (IA) practices are related to the age of the IAF. Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on data collected from the Common Body of Knowledge study conducted by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation in 2006. In total, 9,366 practitioners completed the questionnaire, representing 92 countries. Findings - This study has identified three clusters of IAF based on their age. The findings show that: the organizational profile is significantly different between these three clusters; the current size of the IAF is related to the age of the IAF; those IAFs that were set up in the early days of the IIA (established in 1941) are more likely to use the IIA Standards and have more internal auditors with internal auditing qualifications; a quality assurance and improvement program is more common within older IAFs; and older IAFs have a more diversified IA agenda and more frequently perform advanced IA activities. Research limitations/implications - This paper does not allow conclusions to be reached on causality: the results in this paper are based only on univariate association tests. Given that age of the IAF is not a proxy for its maturity, a multidimensional measure of the maturity of an IAF could be developed. Practical implications - The results reported in this paper can be useful for practitioners who wish to benchmark their IAF and for the IIA to continue implementing their mission “progress through sharing”. Originality/value - This is the first large-scale study focusing on the age of the IAF. The results of this study have resulted in interesting directions for future research.

Designing Student Groupwork in Management Education: Widening the Palette of Options

The authors describe innovation in practice through the unusual deployment of teams in a master’s in management core course. Two parallel uses of teams were made, both drawing on the jigsaw team method, in one case with the team supporting individual work. The experiences support the idea of widening the palette of types of groupwork used in management education, as well as the need for this to be addressed by faculty teams and individual academics.

Control Self Assessment in the 1990s: The UK Perspective

This paper addresses the current state of the art of control self assessment (CSA) practice in the UK. Three key areas are used to provide a view of strategic, tactical and operational elements: a broad overview of the FT Top 50; a case study of audit practice in a university, and a review of the impact of group decision support systems (GDSS) on CSA. The overview was based on a survey of the Top 50 companies listed on the FTSE, while the other two elements were based on structured interviews. From this, three main research questions were developed to enable the research team to evaluate the impact of CSA at three management levels. The conclusions are that CSA is widely seen as a beneficial practice, although it may not be repeated after the first exercise. It was found that CSA is seen as a useful method of evaluating non?financial systems, such as are found in universities. Finally, it was found that, while GDSS have a role to play in the implementation of CSA, the technological factor is not considered to be as important as effective facilitation skills by workshop leaders.

Network and Communications Security

A network is a multi‐user computer system where components of the system are linked to enable sharing of resources. The size and type of the network depends on the needs of the organisation, from Local Area Networks (LANs), which are restricted to one site or building, to Wide Area Networks (WANs), which may be international in scope. Communication between the system components may be through cable, telephone lines, radio, satellite or optical fibre according to the sophistication of the organisations technology.