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Amid public acknowledgment of recurring ethical violations in the volatile financial service industry, internal auditing (IA) professionals do not seem to have done enough to perform their professional responsibility as a line of defense for their employing organizations. This chapter explores whether changes in an IA approach can effectively enable IA as a practice to fulfill its governance role in managing “conduct risk,” i.e., any behavior in a firm that could cause problems to consumer protection, market integrity or competition. We examine the ethical implications of the existing compliance-based IA approach and explain its ineffectiveness in auditing conduct risk within a turbulent environment. Using action research, we explain the germane changes necessary to define a new conduct-focused IA approach capable of predicting and preventing ethical wrongdoing. A conduct-focused approach launches auditors into unfamiliar but strategically critical areas to not only identify material risks but also add value to their organizations. The authors further examine how a change in the auditor’s mindset and other factors promote the effectiveness of the new IA approach in a sustainable way. This chapter contributes to the literature by investigating how internal auditors can better fulfill their professional responsibility when adopting a conduct-focused approach.

How can we explain the unresponsiveness of Internal Audit (IA) amid signs that fraud is arising and spreading within an organization? Internal auditors are entrusted with the formal responsibility of sounding the alarm about the risk of fraud and organizational wrongdoing. However, internal auditors failed to respond as the cross-sell fraud at Wells Fargo’s Community Bank (CB) Division unfolded over more than a decade, growing into a massive, full-fledged scandal. We examine IA as a profession and explore how the interpretation of three classic tenets of auditing (scope, compliance and materiality) may enable organizational wrongdoing to fester unattended until it erupts into yet another scandal. We conclude with implications for the socialization and practice of internal auditors, emphasizing the need for reflexivity and moral judgment in the interpretation and application of tenets so deeply ingrained in the IA profession.

In this chapter, the term responsible management is explained with regard to how it relates to the Igbo apprenticeship system (IAS). Responsible management is ‘the assumption of a person’s responsibility for sustainability, stakeholder value and ethics’ (Laasch & Conaway, 2015, p. 25).

The introduction describes the origin of the Igbo tribe, their exposure to entrepreneurship and the birth of the IAS. It also describes the IAS as a business philosophy targeted towards economic equilibrium. The IAS’s three stages, namely talent identification, learning stage and settlement stage is then discussed followed by the two forms of the IAS: the ‘Igba boi’ (to assist with any task) and ‘Imu oru aka’ (to learn a skill) also known as ‘Imu ahia’ (to learn a trade).

The chapter further presents how IAS promotes sustainability, which involves the protection, creation and maintenance of social, environmental and economic business values. In addition, the various ways via which the IAS encourages the need for decisions in management to be morally desirable in both process and outcome for the benefit of all parties involved will be discussed. This chapter explores how IAS does not only practice responsible management but promotes the idea of responsible management in Nigeria and across the continent. It dissects the contributions of the IAS to the Igbo community, short-comings of the system and how it can be applied to effect positive change in other sectors.

While the IAS has been around for decades, research shows that very little work has been done to document it and written reports on it are sparse. Thus, for this chapter the author chose to interview real people who are products of the IAS. Findings demonstrate that the system has remained the same over the years. However, there are less people using the system today due to some negative social reasons. The people interviewed are quoted in this chapter where relevant but their real identities will not be used here thus, they will be referred to as Mr Ben and Mr James. It is also noteworthy that the author is an Igbo woman who has first-hand information on the Biafra war and how the Igbo people worked hard to recover from its effects.

This chapter deals with the patterns of International Financial Reporting Standards’ accounting policy choices that have been analyzed by several authors in a country-specific context. Instead of a country-specific context, this chapter adopts a sector-specific approach in terms of the airline industry in a regional and global context in order to observe the patterns of cosmetic and non-cosmetic policy options. Cosmetic policy options are related to the presentation of financial information which is not expected to impact the comparability of financial information versus non-cosmetic policy options are considered to be policy options that are related to measurement and, therefore, if there is more than one allowable accounting treatment, the comparability of financial information weakens. In the context of the airline industry, this chapter considers the patterns of policy choices related to IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements, IAS 2 Inventory, IAS 7 Statement of Cash Flows, IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment, IAS 38 Intangible Assets, and IAS 40 Investment Property, within the framework of frequently observed policy options as well as taking depreciation methods and expected useful life into consideration in terms of industry-specific policy options in order to observe whether there is uniformity rather than diversity in the airline industry for presentation and measurement.

Part IV provides readers with the extant requirements for the application of materiality to recognition, measurement, presentation, and disclosure in the financial statements. This part also includes a detailed critical review of the recent Practice Statement on materiality, the FASB’s proposed ASU on the notes and the amendments to the Conceptual Framework proposed by the IASB and the FASB.

The part expands to issues that are typical of Management Commentary, including the SEC guidance on materiality in Management Discussion and Analysis.

It informs about the complexities and subtle differences between financial statements and bookkeeping and the different standards of reasonableness versus materiality.

A section moves from materiality to material misstatements and covers the application of materiality in auditing.

Another section goes in depth on internal control over financial reporting, showing the linkages between materiality and risk appetite and risk tolerance and the related application guidance.

Part V analyzes the details of how to assess materiality. It first tackles qualitative versus quantitative criteria and the role of professional judgment. It then analyzes the selection of quantitative threshold, to expand to the choice of benchmarks. It contrasts the whole financial statements with subaggregates, line items, and components.

Specific sections contrast IASB, FASB, SEC, and other guidance on materiality applied to comparative information, interim reporting, and segment reporting.

The section on estimates mingles complex guidance coming from accounting, auditing, and internal control over financial reporting to explain how the management can improve its assessment of materiality concerning estimates.

After explaining the techniques to move from individual to cumulative misstatements, the part tackles verification ex post, and finally summarizes the intricacies of whether immaterial misstatements are permissible and their consequences.

This chapter focuses on the IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers and IFRS 16 Leases in the airline industry considering the case of Air France – KLM (AF-KLM). This airline timely adopted IFRS 15 and early adopted IFRS 16 for the year 2018 and restated its 2017 financial statements using the full retrospective method so that the 2018 financial statements of the airline provide comparative financial information during the transition phase from IAS 18 to IFRS 15 as well as from IAS 17 to IFRS 16. In the first part of the chapter, liquidity, solvency, and profitability ratios along with cash flow ratios were used to analyze the cumulative effect of IFRS 15 and IFRS 16 using 2017 and restated 2017 financial statements. In this context, results indicate that the liquidity ratios decreased, and the solvency ratios increased in general. In addition, the cumulative effect of IFRS 15 and IFRS 16 created an upward change in general on profitability ratios based on the several performance parameters that should be considered during the transition from IAS 18 to IFRS 15 and from IAS 17 to IFRS 16. Overall, IFRS 15 has minor effect and IFRS 16 has major effect on the financial statements of AF-KLM. In the second part of the chapter, the compliance level of the mandatory disclosures requirements of the airline was examined from the lessee standpoint and the research pointed out that the airline fully complied with these disclosures at its first adoption of IFRS 16 and provided some voluntary disclosures as well.