The rise of compliance systems? The evolution of internal control through the accounting literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT Compliance systems aim to prevent the commission of fraud and corruption by promoting internal procedures and ethical behaviour among individuals. This research analyzes how the existing accounting literature examines the evolution of internal control and how it can reflect the implementation of compliance systems’ features. The starting presumption of this research is that compliance systems result from a process of audit implosion in which the characteristics of the audit society influence the organisation’s internal control. New regulations turned firms out-inside by requiring internal assurance about the effectiveness of their internal control. Compliance can be considered the last step within the evolution of internal control, providing a self-oversight and ethical perspective. This paper contributes to the accounting literature by showing that compliance systems can foster the bridge between two trends of research: management control and risk management.