Practitioners and academics alike debate best practices in corporate governance, but rarely do companies reveal how they determine what governance practices work best for them. In a new paper, we report the results of interviews on this topic with 29 chief audit executives (CAEs) from U.S. publicly traded companies.

CAEs are in a unique position to evaluate corporate governance, most often reporting administratively to the CEO or CFO and functionally to the audit committee. This reporting structure allows them to regularly interact with management, while also being held accountable as the “eyes and ears” of the board. CAEs lead … Read more