Internal audit and complex systems: emerging approaches

When planning and performing their audits, internal auditors usually apply a practical reductionist approach in order to facilitate the timely and efficient allocation of finite audit resources and to manage the expectations of audit sponsors and auditees. Though practical and widely accepted, this approach runs the risk of oversimplification and underestimation of the complexity of the audit object. This may lead to incomplete and/or erroneous audit outcomes, which in turn may influence the decisions made by stakeholders using the auditor’s report. In this paper, we explore the audit of complex systems, argue that a different approach is necessary to tackle such systems, and explore the contours of a practically applicable approach loosely based on the Cynefin framework.