Sarbanes-Oxley Law - Effects on Internal Control - Research Proposal Example

The initial research title was "Internal Controls on Organizations," but this was found to be a weak title because it was very wide, lacked specificity, and would be a monumental task with the likelihood of being non-researchable. A good research should be measurable, working within certain limits of time and other resources available at whatever level a person is to carry out the research. Indeed, when working at lower academic levels, time constraints play a pivotal role in determining the scope of the study to a greater extent than when doing research at, say, the doctorate level, where finances might be the major determinant. Therefore, the title of the study becomes very important in delineating the confines within which one shall be working, and defining which areas shall not be dealt with in the study.

The title was therefore changed to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its effects on internal controls. This title is more specific than the first title, because it clearly indicates that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is the Independent variable, while the internal controls within a corporation become the dependent variables within the study. Although this makes the study have a clearer outlook, it does not make it any easier, given the plethora of provisions with which each corporation has to comply, added to the fact that there are a multitude of corporations in the United States, working within different parts of the larger economy. These facts therefore present a problem to the proposed study, because not all corporations will lend themselves to the study, nor will they be studied the same way.

Whereas the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has local application, it may also have global ramifications which then make some corporations ineligible as participants in the study, or rather as possible candidates for a case study. This is because some corporations are only run locally, and the wider global arena is somewhat irrelevant to them currently. On the other hand, there are corporations which have gone global, having satellite offices in diverse places, spanning many countries. Particularly important are such companies that deal with either software or hardware targeting a techno-savvy global audience. For such companies, staying local would be self-defeating given that the world around them is constantly changing with new inventions and innovations being the order of the day. Such are the companies that lend themselves as a worthwhile object of study, not only because of their global approach, but also because their ever changing nature poses a problem to policy formulation and, by extension, compliance issues. It is from this backdrop that the question arises about whether or not an overarching global approach to compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act shall be more appropriate than simply making it a local affair.

Developing the research proposal also had its measure of difficulties, which shall be discussed briefly. First of all, the methodological approach to be chosen for the study posed a challenge, because there was an option of studying a single company versus studying several companies at once. One major question that came to mind even as it was decided that a single company would suffice was that as the proposal was being developed, it would have been better to think of a company that was easily accessible, or alternatively within a certain radius from the area of residence so that distance would not act as a drawback to the completion of the study or to any preliminary steps taken in preparation for the study.

Secondly, although it has been proposed that a questionnaire be used as the data collection tool, the tool is yet to be developed using questions that are relevant to drawing out information about compliance. Here is the difficulty posed by the fact that assessment of compliance is an auditing mandate, and a blind approach to the research has the capacity to reinvent the wheel. Therefore, the researcher might end up doing the auditor’s job, rather than researching per se to suggest a solution to a prevailing problem.

As has been mentioned in the brief discussion prior to this summary, there are still some foreseeable difficulties even during the data collection process that might not be avoided. For an issue like absenteeism or an employee calling sick, for such employees to be included in the study, the duration of data collection will have to be extended until the time that the said employees resume their duties. On the other hand, there is a possibility of sending the questionnaire to each employee via the internet, so that each of them can access the survey at their own leisure. The problem with this approach is that it shall require a robust infrastructure to ensure that none of the information leaks out to the general public, or that the identities of the participants become known through, say their internet protocol addresses. The latter issue can be addressed by peer to peer encryption of data so that once the information is sent, it travels as a mixed up and encrypted packet of data that cannot be read by any third part while it is on transit, and shall only make sense once the recipient acknowledges its receipt.

Going techno shall also have the advantage of avoiding the pitfalls that come with handling large amounts of data recorded on many sheets of paper, and having to transfer these into data analysis software before the actual analysis begins. In essence, it shall be helping in maintaining the integrity of the raw data while also reducing attrition rates significantly.