Mechanisms of accountability and governance: audit, assurance, and internal control

We adopt a historical perspective to understand the current landscape of accountability and governance mechanisms. In adopting assurance as the umbrella concept for audit and internal control, we explore how the notion of accountability ("accountability for what") and the beneficiaries of corporate accountability ("accountability to whom") have changed over time, leading to the re-definition of "old" mechanisms of accountability and governance and the development of new mechanisms ("accountability through"). We then provide an overview of recent studies examining how these mechanisms contribute to accountability and governance. We show that the recent trend of combining traditional financial reporting with other reporting activities in an integrated report is questioning the traditional boundaries among the three mechanisms, challenging the attempts to compartmentalize them ("combined assurance"). The chapter concludes by proposing a taxonomy as a tool to help conceptually organize the recent debates on assurance, audit, and internal control practices.