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An Empirical Analysis Of Internal Control Weaknesses Under Sas No. 78: An Examination Of State Audit Reports, Edmund J. Boyle, Steven M. Cooper, Marshall A. Geiger

Accounting Faculty Publications

While there has been a considerable amount of research regarding internal control over the past several years, scant empirical research has examined SAS No. 78's integrated five-component depiction of internal control in a government setting. In particular, to our knowledge, no study has assessed the types or frequency of weaknesses under the SAS No. 78 framework using actual internal control system findings. In this study, we examine 32 state department and agency internal control reports to assess how well the theoretical framework captures actual system weaknesses, and to determine the relative distribution of weaknesses across components of the framework.

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