The Role of Internal Auditors in the Corporate Governance Framework Essay

The Role of Internal Auditors in the Corporate Governance Framework - Essay Example Internal auditing, as a framework, has been established for serving the particular organizational need. This study focuses on the role of internal auditors in the corporate governance framework. This issue is explored by referring primarily to corporate governance, as part of modern businesses. Then the role of internal auditors in corporate governance is analyzed taking into consideration the following fact: in each business, the tasks developed by internal auditors may be differentiated. Still, the power of internal auditors to check business processes is standardized; internal auditors have access to all business operations, meaning that the full authorization of the auditors by the top management is considered as guaranteed (Rittenberg et al. 2011). However, despite the fact that the role of internal auditors is closely related to Corporate Governance, the involvement of the auditors in the activities and data of firms is often not welcomed, a phenomenon resulted from certain events, as analyzed below (Cascarino 2007). On the other hand, the accountability of internal auditors for the tasks assigned to them is full; this means that failures and mistakes while performing the internal auditing can lead to severe consequences for the auditors even if the latter has taken all appropriate measures for avoiding such outcome (Ridley 2008). These issues are discussed below with reference to the literature that has been published in this field. It is proved that internal auditing is a complex process and for this reason, the evaluation of its performance can be a difficult task, especially in countries where the regulatory framework for businesses is unclear. The term ‘corporate governance’ is quite broad. Indeed, in a relevant definition, the term ‘is defined as the total of operations and controls of an organization’ (Fama and Jensen 1983, in Karagiorgos et al. 2010, p.17).  Ã‚