Whittaker, Louise2020-04-062020-04-062020/04/012019Tayengwa, T 2019, Implementing combined assurance in organisations to enable boards to exercise risk oversight, MBA Mini Dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/74030>http://hdl.handle.net/2263/74030Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2019.There has been an increase in corporate failures over the past two decades, which have been attributed to governance failures. In particular, inadequate risk oversight by boards has been cited as the main cause of these failures. Combined assurance has emerged as a mechanism that can assist boards to exercise their risk oversight role. This entails different assurance providers working together to align their assurance activities, in order to provide boards with a holistic view of the risk and control and environment of the organisation. However, many organisations are finding it challenging to implement combined assurance due to a lack of guidance regarding why they need to do this, what they need to succeed, implementation approaches, and if there are benefits that can be achieved. The aim of this study is to understand the drivers, success factors, methods/ ways used to implement combined assurance and the benefits thereof. In particular, if the benefit of enabling boards to exercise their risk oversight is being achieved. Qualitative research methods were used to explore the concept of combined assurance. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted face to face with participants who had experience in implementing combined assurance. The participants were either Heads of assurance functions in the Internal Audit, External Audit and Risk departments; risk and assurance consultants; or independent directors who chaired either the Risk or Audit Committees. The participants represented six different industries, namely the Financial, Consulting, Printing, Mining, Property and Motor industries. The data collected during the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings from the study demonstrate that there are internal and external drivers causing organisations to adopt combined assurance, such as the existence of oversight committees and compliance with governance standards respectively. Buy-in from stakeholders, a common methodology, a mature Risk function and a strong coordinator are some of the key success factors noted as being required to implement combined assurance successfully. Furthermore, the combined assurance map, joint assurance, alignment of assurance activities and coordinated reporting emerged as the implementation approaches being used in organisations. Moreover, benefits such as preventing duplication of effort, focus and deepening understanding of risks and consistent messaging were some of the benefits found in this study. More importantly, the study demonstrated that combined assurance enables boards to exercise their risk oversight role effectively.en© 2020 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.UCTDMini Dissertation18370579