Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

M.Com. (Computer Auditing) / In the wake of the economic catastrophes and corporate disgraces such as Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat, and other corporations at the turn of the 21st Century, the United States Senate adopted the Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility and Transparency Act, which became known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (hereafter the SOX Act). The concluding bill, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, was accepted and approved by the United States Senate on July 25, 2002. The primary motive of the SOX Act is to safeguard shareholders of public corporations by improving, cultivating and ultimately ensuring the reliability and accuracy of corporate disclosure of financial and non-financial information. More than a decade later, many corporations have enhanced their compliance capabilities and competencies, having learned from prior experience and/or earlier SOX fiascos. The envisioned benefits of the SOX Act were to provide the charter and contextual information needed to implement, monitor and review operational and financial processes, reinforce internal controls, and enhance corporate financial reporting. Since the SOX Act forces corporations to conform and comply, the question is; whether SOX compliance can essentially benefit the company’s everyday business as it affects virtually every line of work with the unequivocal purpose of reinstating public confidence in the disclosures included in annual financial statements. The study focuses on how to approach the rudimentary SOX compliance checklist and possibly transform it into an actual value added service for stakeholders and furthermore, how to leverage off the knowledge garnered through complying with the SOX Act – ultimately creating a more effective and resourceful corporation in all financial spheres. By aligning the SOX compliance process with the actual improvement of internal controls, financial processes and ultimately financial reporting, an unprejudiced ambition to identify and manage “real world” risks can be achieved. Ultimately, to comply with the SOX Act might not be an option for public corporations; however, being SOX compliant doesn’t have to be without substantial benefit to a corporation, Senior Executive Management and eventually and ultimately the shareholders.

D.Litt et Phil. / The establishment of Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) was seen as a way of addressing the continued shortage of skilled professionals in order to ensure a competitive South African economy in the global environment. The SETAs attracted much media attention as a result of poor service delivery primarily attributed to poor corporate governance. Despite the many positive contributions by SETAs, they remain the most criticized entities in post-democratic South Africa. The study entails a description, explanation and assessment of the concepts corporate governance, risk management and compliance in SETAs. The legislative framework that underpins good corporate governance is identified and explained. The roles of the board and its fiduciary duties, and of the audit committee and the roles of executive management are described in order to ensure a clear understanding of each of them and a separation of each from the others. The concepts corporate governance, risk management and compliance are inseparable from the well-being of any organization. The board of an entity is ultimately accountable for the implementation of good corporate governance. Its role can be of value only if it is properly constituted, is functioning effectively and if its role is understood by all parties concerned. The manifestations of poor corporate governance include poor financial management, non-compliance with policies and procedures, lack of capacity building and the lack of a formalized nomination system to identify suitably qualified and experienced board members. By exercising corporate governance in an accountable and transparent manner, the most appropriate developmental policy objectives to sustainably develop a society by mobilizing and applying all available resources in the public and private sectors in the most efficient, efficient and democratic way will be achieved.

Research accentuates that end-users‘ noncompliance with information security policy (ISP) is a key concern for government just as it is for the private sector. Although awareness and training programmes are important factors impacting employees‘ intentions to comply with an organisation‘s ISP, it can be argued that there is insufficient empirical evidence to support this assertion. To address this gap, this study seeks to expand research on ISP compliance by focusing on attitudes as targets of change. A research model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour was proposed to illustrate the influence of ISP awareness training on end-users‘ attitudes towards complying with their organisation‘s ISP. Relevant hypotheses were developed to test the research conceptualisation. A survey and an experiment was undertaken to collect the data from a sample of 173 end-users of a single government organisation in one province. The data was captured and analysed using a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Furthermore, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test whether the overall model appears to be a good fit to support the hypotheses. The reliability, validity, and model fit were found to be statistically significant, and three out of five research hypotheses were supported. Overall this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing an understanding of the methods that can be used to encourage end-users‘ ISP compliance behaviour through an attitudinal shift, thereby targeting end-users‘ attitude as a means to improve information security policy compliance. Implications of the findings are further discussed in the paper. / Information Technology / M. Tech. (Information Technology)