The Institute of Internal Auditors is sending out a survey in 23 languages to internal auditors around the world in an effort to gauge the opinions of audit professionals across the globe.
The 2015 Global Internal Audit Common Body of Knowledge Practitioner survey is designed to solicit new insight into the internal audit profession, whose value has been growing to meet new risks worldwide.
“There are a lot of risks that emerged over the last year that nobody saw coming, particularly geopolitical risks,” said IIA president and CEO Richard Chambers during an interview with Accounting Today last week. “A lot of our members are connected with companies that have a global footprint. We've got an unsettled environment in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. You've got to be concerned. The sort of things they're watching are supply chain issues, helping companies figure out if this is going to have an immediate impact. Sometimes internal auditors in general can see that first tier of risks. But maybe they don't see what will be the sequence of events that those risks could spawn. Some don't see the instability out there having an immediate impact on their companies, but as they think through it and connect the dots, I think they'll start to see that some of these things could have an impact.”
The CBOK survey targets front-line internal auditors and chief audit executives and will be open from Feb. 2 to March 27. It will allow internal auditors the opportunity to share information about key business areas including governance, management, talent, risk, technology and the future of the profession.
The survey, a product of the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation, will be distributed to the more than 180,000 Institute of Internal Auditors members worldwide, as well as through other international professional organizations. Internal auditors who are not IIA members, as well as those in related fields such as risk managers and compliance officers, also are urged to participate.
The resulting information will be shared in a series of reports beginning with 10 Imperatives for Innovation, which will be released in July at The IIA’s International Conference in Vancouver, Canada. The reports—more than 30 are planned through 2016—will come in a number of forms, from in-depth “Core Reports” focusing on broad topics of significance to the profession to shorter “Fast Facts” and infographics. Each will be complemented by corresponding PowerPoint presentations so that the information can be easily shared in other forums. All reports generated from the CBOK survey will be available for free to the public.
Additionally, data from the survey will be made available to educators as support material for curricula, academic researchers, and The IIA’s more than 150 North American chapters and more than 100 national Institutes worldwide to develop customized presentations.
The co-chairs of the 2015 CBOK effort, Richard J. Anderson, DePaul University clinical professor, and Jean Coroller, French Institute of Directors certifications director, are urging as many professionals who either work in internal audit or interact with internal auditors to participate in the survey in order to make the resulting database as comprehensive as possible.
The survey is available through the
