Comparing the Attitudes and Activities of Internal Auditors in Australia, Canada, and the United States Regarding Green IT

• In Event: Exploratory Studies

Abstract

Internationally, sustainability activities and reporting, whether mandated or voluntary, are a significantly growing element of corporate governance. Although voluntary, 499 of the S&P 500 have some form of sustainability report on their website; some of those companies even link executive compensation to some type of sustainability criteria. Whether mandated or voluntary reporting, boards and CEOs do not want to be accused of greenwashing (deceptive reporting). With the internal auditors considered control experts and both SOX and COSO promoting the value of internal auditing, it seems logical that organizations would call upon their internal audit functions to provide assurance that the appropriate controls have been designed and implemented and are functioning correctly to produce accurate and timely reports. Additionally, it also seems that logical starting point for sustainability activities would be green IT because of internal audit’s existing familiarity with their organization’s IT activities. However, Gray (2014) found only minimal green IT activities by U.S. and Canadian internal auditors. This study compares Australian internal auditors to Gray (2014) results. We expected more green IT involvement in Australia because Australian has more mandatory sustainability regulations than the U.S. and Canada. We also assumed, in general, that Australians would be more aware of environmental issues because the country has the highest incidence of skin cancer, which is blamed on the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica that significantly raises the UV radiation in Australia. However, the results of this study show that, other than a couple minor differences, the green IT attitudes and activities of the internal auditors of these three countries are essentially interchangeable. Future research needs to identify whether there are cultural reasons or deeper, profound systemic reasons why internal auditors are not more proactively involved in the highly-visible, rapid-growing, value-added areas of sustainability and green IT.

Authors

• Won Gyun No, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

• Glen L Gray, Cal State University - Northridge

• Kyunghee Yoon, Rutgers Business School