This paper provides a critical assessment of the
internal auditor’s role in the newly regulated
financial reporting environment. In a response to
a series of extraordinary accounting scandals (e.g.
Enron andWorldCom), the United States Congress
passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) in the summer of 2002. Section 404 of the SOA requires,
among other things, that US public companies (i.e.
those registered with the United States Securities
and Exchange Commission) document, test, and
assess their internal control systems. Many
companies turned to their internal auditors to lead
the Section 404 compliance effort. Thus, the
orientation of internal audit for many of these
companies shifted toward a compliance focus.
While the increased workload from the Section
404 requirements provides some benefits to the
individual internal auditor (e.g. job security and
increased pay), the compliance work may, in fact,be diminishing the perceived professionalism and
value of the internal audit group as a whole. Our
assessment is based upon the responses from
interviews we conducted with 17 Chief Audit
Executives (CAEs) of large US public companies. In
this paper, we first discuss the overwhelming
challenge of early Section 404 compliance and the
resulting structural changes to the internal audit
function within the newly regulated environment.
Following this discussion, we provide a critical
assessment, based on the CAEs’ responses in light
of the extant literature, of the new internal audit
role in terms of adding value and perceived
professionalism. The SOA impacts all SEC
registered companies, which includes the some
1,300 foreign companies listed on US exchanges
and a significant number of foreign subsidiaries
and foreign operating divisions of US companies.
Thus, the question of how the SOA affects the
perceived professionalism and value of the internal
audit group should be of interest to auditors and
regulators throughout the world.