Stakeholders’ view on the contribution of public sector internal auditing to enterprise risk management

Abstract

Although risk management is not a new phenomenon, enterprise risk management (ERM) is a relatively new concept in the business environment. In a very short time, ERM has established its worth in all sectors. This article investigates the views of chief audit executives (CAEs), the chairs of audit committees (CACs) and accounting officers (AOs) with regard to the contribution that the internal audit function (IAF) makes to ERM in the public sector. This contribution is considered in the context of existing ERM structures and the level of coordination between ERM and the IAF. Results indicate that the CAEs have very different views from the other two categories of respondents, and that the existence of ERM structures has very little effect on how the contribution of internal auditing to ERM is perceived.