Stopping hamburglars: applying effective internal control

Journal article

Understanding effective internal control is vital for accounting and business students. Examples of fraud and loss through poor internal control are widespread in practice. The learning objectives of this teaching case focus on improving students’ ability to comprehensively evaluate internal control practices and suggest and justify new practices where applicable. The McDonald’s Monopoly fraud is a real-life example of a situation where multiple internal control failures had substantial financial and reputational consequences for McDonald’s, particularly its outsourcing partners involved in operationalizing the monopoly game. We use this factual case to illustrate control system shortcomings, allowing students to evaluate internal control and suggest internal control techniques with reference to all five components of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) Internal Control-Integrated Framework.

Authors: Soonawalla, K; Wakefield, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Accounting Association
• Journal: Issues in Accounting Education
• Publication date: 2024-06-28
• Acceptance date: 2024-04-17
• DOI: 10.2308/ISSUES-2023-087
• EISSN: 1558-7983
• ISSN: 0739-3172
• Language: English
• Keywords: internal control; fraud triangle; fraud mitigation; COSO Internal Control—Integrated Framework