The Placement of the Internal Auditing Organization: Analysis of Companies Listed in the Star Segment of the Italian Stock Exchange

Abstract

After a review of the existing literature, the research aims to analyze the information emerging from corporate governance reports in 2015, in reference to the year 2014, which the companies prepare as part of information provided annually to the market. The sample for analysis is the group of companies belonging to the Ftse Italy Star Italian Stock Exchange. The research has shown, as the first element in the survey, that nearly all of the companies have created a dedicated function or outsourced the internal audit activity. The second major finding from the analysis is that in most companies the function depends hierarchically on the board. The third point analyzed concerns the figure of responsible for Internal Auditing, as established by the Code of Conduct; it replaces the person responsible for internal control and risk management. The analysis showed that almost all the companies have attributed the tasks and responsibilities of the person responsible for internal control to the Head of the Internal Audit Department, due to the coincidence of the operating environments of the two figures and the strong synergies between the two roles. The last point analyzed covers the case where the internal auditing department is decentralized or, on the contrary, remains within the company. The results showed a substantial range of companies chose not to outsource the function.