Auditing Corporate Culture

This course provides internal auditors with a foundation for approaching an audit of company culture. Learners will be exposed to key drivers and frameworks that can help establish guidelines and parameters around the somewhat nebulous topic of culture. This course will prepare internal auditors for performing an audit of culture by first exposing them to ways in which an organization can be assessed.

We will review how attitudes towards risk, organizational strategies and values, structure, communication styles, and decision-making processes all factor into assessing organizational stances of culture. We will also explore considerations that auditors should be aware of when preparing to perform an audit of culture. Learners will leave this course with a better understanding of how to factor these considerations into their audit work and execute their audit engagement. Finally, this course will illustrate how to best perform an audit of culture and share the audit report with key stakeholders to yield improved outcomes for employees and organizational leaders. There is no CPE available for this course.

Why you should take this course

For users who are new to internal auditing, or would like to learn more about it.

Here are the learning objectives we'll cover.

• Identify key drivers and frameworks that can help guide an audit of culture.
• Identify and describe various means of assessing an organization in preparation for performing an audit of culture.
• Identify and describe various organizational considerations that can impact and influence corporate culture.
• Describe how to perform an audit of culture.

Here are the topics we'll cover.

1. Foundational Elements

   • Overview
   • Frameworks

2. Assessing the Organization

   • Organizational Culture Risk
   • Organizational Strategies and Values
   • Corporate Governance Structure
   • How Decisions are Made
   • Communication Styles
   • Hard and Soft Controls

3. Considerations

   • Leadership Models
   • Personnel Evaluations
   • Deployment of Resources
   • Organizational Changes
   • Metrics
   • Root Causes

4. Performing the Audit

   • Composition of the Audit Team
   • Conducting the Assessment
   • Summarizing and Reporting the Results
   • Corrective Actions