Hot Topics
Internal Auditor's Communications Advisory Committee, staff, and readers have helped compile the following list of topic suggestions. Although many of the topics are somewhat broad, the magazine's editors look for manuscripts with a clearly defined focus. To ensure topics are tailored appropriately for our audience, we recommend that prospective authors submit an outline proposal for review before drafting a full manuscript (editor@theiia.org).

Governance

• The changing relationship between audit committees and chief audit executives.
• How has emphasis on financial reporting impacted internal auditing and the organizations they serve? Has excessive focus resulted in lapses in governance, controls?
• Has financial reporting improved since Sarbanes-Oxley?
• Improving audit committee performance - is internal auditing stepping up to the plate?
• Governance structures of foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries.
• The Sarbanes-Oxley journey - is it migrating from "project to process"?

Fraud

• What is internal auditing's level of involvement in the organization's fraud-related efforts?
• Whistleblowing - a comparison of approaches used in different countries.
• What are organizations doing to protect customer data, in light of recent incidents of customer data loss?
• Forensic auditing.
• Working relationships between in-house legal counsel and internal audit departments.
• Lessons learned/best practices in auditing the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act globally.

Risk

• What are the leading causes of financial statement restatements?
• Case study article on ERM implementation.
• Comparison of risk management approaches in several countries.
• Effective reporting of risk assessment results (leading practices).

Technology

• Business continuity planning.
• Identity management.
• IT controls.
• Privacy.
• IT security vulnerability.
• Emerging technologies.

Ethics

• Case studies of audits involving the organization's moral principles, rules, standards, or tone at the top.
• Merging of compliance and ethics departments.

Internal Control

• Auditing entity-level controls.
• Internal control assessments - how much is enough?

Other Topics

• Self-assessment with independent validation - are you getting your money's worth?
• Disaster recovery planning.
• Relationship with the external auditor.
• Value-add audits (non Sarbanes-Oxley areas of focus).
• Issues pertaining to internal auditors in the public sector.
• Doing more with less.
• Industry-specific case studies - utilities, gaming, health care, etc.

Editorial lineup of future issues