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Appendix 2 shows, for the same journals, the number of articles about control systems published in the mentioned period and the number/percentage of these articles specifically related to the failure of the same control systems.
Appendix 3 contains, for the mentioned journals (identified by numbers 1-25) the number and percentage of articles about IC and IC failures published by national and international journals from 2002 to 2004.
The results of the document analysis described above have shown that the most frequently cited themes are general concepts regarding IC systems; the relationship between control and corporate governance; the relationship between ethics and controls; the auditors’independence; the quality of control and the auditors’professional profiles; control and accounting principles; legal and nonlegal solutions to the problem of controls; failure of IC systems in relation to the most recent financial scandals (i.e., Enron, Parmalat, etc.).
Based on these results and with specific regard to the aim of this work explained in paragraph 1, the authors started from the following factors that are considered extremely important in order to understand the causes of IC failure (Rebora 20073): technical aspects of controls; insufficient and non-systematic definition of control procedures and practices; auditors’personal characteristics;auditing personnel management and policies; insufficient internal operational support from the other company functions and the other control bodies; public policies and system factors; indifference of the Board of Directors; impediments put in place by the management to the flow of relevant information; excessive “political”orientation and inappropriate interest connections.
For the above mentioned factors (making part of the researchquestionnaire described in paragraphs 4.3 and 5) the authors reported the major contributions found in the Italian and international literature.
Control mechanisms aim to reduce the agency problem arising from the separation between ownership and management: they are employed to ensure that the managers act in the interest of the owners (Jensen and Meckling1976). The sametheory represents a fundamental theoretical reference, starting from the asymmetry problems and agents’opportunistic behaviour, faced with the inability of the principal to control (Arnold and De Lange 2004).
There is an increasing need for a new definition of the relationship between
corporate governance and control systems with a meaning of risk management which goes beyond its traditional technical profile (Spira and Page 2003).
Having different auditors (even if every auditor is looking at his own specific area) implies governance issues and role redundancies, especially considering the following critical elements emerging from several studies (O’Connell 2004; Grey 2003; Lee 2002; Francis 2004): auditors’limited experience; highly competitive career systems and high turnover; increasing number of non audit services.
There is a consolidated trend which characterises different fields ofcontrol activities (McMillan 2004): they regulate the professional space by activities which limit the entrance and managing of rules rather than the use of techniques aimed at verifying the effective professional activity. The professional control is excessively based on standards and formal mechanisms rather than on the content of the control activities, resulting in a reduction of their importance, and consequences for the professional meaning of the auditing activities
It is essential not to forget that the cultural factor is very important in terms of causes of failure of control systems (O’Connell 2004).
The Internal Auditor role should make part of an doriginate the actual and potential cultural change in terms of control. A proper balance among EA, IA and other auditors could be very important to improve corporate governance systems and to make independence factor effective inside companies (Rezaee et al. 2003).