Increasing accountability through internal control mechanism in religious organization

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the implementation of internal control in religious institutions, especially church institutions. A difference in church governance certainly differentiates the church's internal control, so the issue of internal control is very important and interesting for further investigation. Methodology: This study used a sample of 100 churches. The researchers used questionnaires in data collection. The sampling method used is the purposive sampling method. To see whether there are differences in internal control between different church governance styles, the researchers used the chi-square analysis. Results: The findings of this study are as follows: all churches have realized the importance of accountability that must be held to gain the trust of their congregants. Hence, all churches sampled in this study already have an internal control system. This study found differences in the systems based on church governance. Therefore, it is known that governance differentiates churches’ internal control systems. Implications: The implication of this research is that a church must have an effective internal control system. This is necessary because the church must be accountable to all of its stakeholders, especially the church congregants. The implementation of the internal control system may differ according to the church management system. However, the elements of the internal control system must be the same even though the process of implementing the internal control system is different.