Hard, soft or situational controls? Bridging the gap between security, compliance and internal control

Abstract

A historic focus on preventing losses from crime and a growing demand for compliance and internal control have placed the risk of employee crime and misconduct high on the corporate risk map. Its potential impact has become increasingly evident and operational management supported by various functional teams are being held accountable for establishing and implementing effective risk mitigating strategies and controls. The need for these teams to work together in a concerted manner is an obvious one, as a lack of alignment may result in inefficiencies and control deficiencies. In this paper it is argued that cross-functional collaboration can potentially be established or improved if practitioners come to realize that the measures and controls developed and introduced to mitigate the risk of employee crime and misconduct are very much alike. Following an exploratory review of the types of controls referred to in literature, it borrows from environmental criminology to demonstrate that similarity.