Internal control—a question of integrity, ethics, and competence

As an outgrowth of a Treadway Commission recommendation, the Commission's sponsoring organizations initiated a study to provide a common definition of internal control that public companies can use to judge the effectiveness of their internal control systems. This article provides a brief overview of the study's resulting internal control framework, focusing principally on one particular component—the competence, integrity,and ethical values of a company's people.