Auditing Organisational Behaviour & Culture

Introduction

This Auditing Organisational Behaviour & Culture training course equips internal audit and assurance professionals with a structured, risk-based approach to evaluating how behaviour, leadership, incentives and organisational culture influence governance, risk and control effectiveness. Traditional audit approaches often focus on policies, processes and documented controls. However, control failures frequently arise from how people make decisions, respond to pressure, exercise authority, challenge management and apply controls in practice.

The training course moves beyond broad assessments of organisational culture by focusing on observable behaviours and evidence that can be evaluated through internal audit. Participants will examine behavioural risk, leadership conduct, incentive structures, speak-up culture, psychological safety and behavioural indicators before developing the skills required to plan and perform behavioural audit engagements. The course addresses interviews, focus groups, organisational data, evidence triangulation and root-cause analysis, before progressing to sensitive audit findings, board assurance, remediation and continuous monitoring.

This GLOMACS Auditing Organisational Behaviour & Culture training course will highlight:

• Translating organisational culture into observable and auditable behaviours
• Identifying behavioural risks that can undermine governance and internal controls
• Assessing leadership, incentives, conduct and psychological safety
• Applying risk-based techniques to behavioural audit planning and fieldwork
• Triangulating qualitative and quantitative evidence to develop defensible conclusions
• Reporting behavioural risk to senior management, boards and audit committees

Objectives

By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:

• Identify behavioural risks and incorporate them into risk-based internal audit planning.
• Evaluate the influence of leadership, incentives and organisational pressures on behaviour and controls.
• Assess speak-up culture, psychological safety and behavioural risk indicators.
• Plan and perform behavioural audit engagements using appropriate evidence-gathering techniques.
• Triangulate behavioural evidence and develop defensible audit findings and assurance conclusions.
• Evaluate remediation and provide meaningful assurance over sustainable behavioural change.

Training Methodology

This training course combines expert-led presentations, facilitated discussions, behavioural risk case studies, audit scenarios, evidence-assessment exercises and practical applications. Participants will examine behavioural indicators, interview evidence, organisational data and management explanations to develop a disciplined approach to auditing sensitive and complex behavioural risks.

Organisational Impact

Organisations will benefit from:

• Stronger internal audit coverage of behavioural and cultural risks.
• Earlier identification of behaviours that may undermine controls and organisational objectives.
• Improved assurance over leadership conduct, incentives and accountability.
• Greater insight from speak-up, workforce, conduct and compliance information.
• More credible reporting of systemic behavioural issues to boards and audit committees.
• Stronger monitoring of remediation and sustainable behavioural change.

Personal Impact

Participants will develop:

• Greater confidence in auditing organisational behaviour and culture.
• Stronger understanding of behavioural risk and control effectiveness.
• Improved behavioural audit planning and evidence-gathering capabilities.
• Greater ability to analyse qualitative and quantitative behavioural information.
• Enhanced judgement when developing sensitive and evidence-based audit findings.
• Stronger capability to communicate behavioural assurance to senior stakeholders.