Risk Management and Internal Auditing: What are the Essential Building Blocks for a Successful Paradigm Change?

The internal audit function that ventures into building links with risk management creates immense opportunities for the internal auditor through enabling the alignment of the audit universe and the audit plan with the organization's strategic objectives and operational plans. A successful venture into this new field is heavily dependent on a number of prerequisites which need to be present for such a development to be successful. This paper presents the results of a study carried out by the authors involving 29 organizations spanning Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.