Internal Control and Crisis Management: Insights from State- and Privately-Owned Enterprises in Ghana

The paper examines the level of adherence to internal control measures and the relationship between internal controls and crisis management. Internal control, an essential tool for crisis management, has received less attention from scholars and practitioners in Ghana. The authors employed a survey and cumulative percentage research approach. Twenty enterprises from five sectors, namely: transport, service, energy, financial, and manufacturing, with 120 respondents from both state- and privately-owned enterprises in Ghana, were used in this study. The results indicate that less than a quarter of the respondents agree that both state- and privately-owned enterprises perform excellently in adhering to the 2013 COSO internal control model. However, the performance of privately-owned enterprises is better than that of state-owned ones. The study also finds a weak positive correlation between internal controls and crisis management in both state- and privately-owned enterprises in Ghana. The study recommends internal controls to be taken seriously with special attention on board members and management’s appointment, which should be based on their competence rather than political and other social ties. The authors conclude that an effective internal control system is crucial for overcoming a crisis in organizations.