Internal Audit Function in Relation to Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (EWRM)Practices

This paper examines the internal audit roles and functions in Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (EWRM) practices of Public Listed Companies (PLCs) in service sector. A triangulation approach was adopted to obtain an enriched data collection and analysis for the study. From a survey analysis, the findings showed that 85.7 percent of EWRM programs in financial companies were under the direct supervision of a risk management department as compared to only 34.1 percent in non-financial companies. This result was quite surprising, as more than half (51.3 percent) of the EWRM programs in non-financial companies were actually under the supervision of an internal audit department. However, only 47.2 percent of the companies were found to have their own internal audit, while 52.6 percent reported that they outsourced their audit activities. Quite interestingly, the overall result from a case study analysis found that the internal auditor plays a dual function, as an internal auditor and also as a risk manager.