Determining the Effectiveness of Internal Controls in Enterprise Risk Management based on COSO Recommendations

The continuous risk assessment depends on the integration of the lines of defense (LOD), the main LOD are three lines (management control, risk and control monitoring, ensuring independence of the internal audit) which lead to the integration of enterprise risk management ERM. The cooperation among the LOD is not new in an environment of growing risk and limited resources. But for this collaboration to be effective, internal control bodies need to identify a methodology for evaluating the LOD and mitigating the challenges they face.

This study aims to identify the most important internal control methods in assessing the risks facing the organization in accordance with the internal control framework issued by COSO in order to limit the obstacles that decrease the ability of the internal audit to rely on others for fear of low level of independence and objectivity, and to clarify the objectives and motives of internal control and its capability with the responsibility and authority of the internal auditor within the organization.

The main problem of the study is the ability of internal control to regulate the activity of the organization's LOD in order to increase the effectiveness of ERM, reduce the cost of compliance and enhance the independence of the internal auditor of the organization.

The researchers adopted COSO recommendations to determine the effectiveness of internal control in risk assessment of the organization by analyzing these recommendations and comparing them with the most important challenges facing internal auditing according to the related PwC reports of.

The researchers concluded that the internal audit plays a major role in improving ERM of the organization and the integration of its LOD by enhancing the role of the internal auditor and raising the level of its independence and objectivity.