More on an IIA Study

The Institute of Internal Auditors is taking us to task for a summary we wrote of CFO Magazine's coverage of its international survey. We said "the magazine's independent analysis stands in stark contrast with a cheerleading press release the IIA issued about its survey findings" when CFO wrote:

The preliminary results show that while auditors believe they are valued by their organizations, staffing and future budget allocations for the teams are stagnant as the demand for good talent - and thus higher salaries - isn't expected to improve.

You can read our pick-up here, or CFO's article here. I also blogged about it, here.

Scott McCallum, the IIA's media relations manager, contacted us and also posted this comment to the story:

The internal audit profession is anything but "stagnant." This is a grave error on the part of this writer and the CFO.com reporter, Sarah Johnson, as both articles misinterpreted the findings of the study. Internal auditing is one of the fastest growing professions in the world today and salaries are on the rise according to the studies of several independent sources. Don't hesitate to look within the internal audit profession for jobs that are making a difference to organizations around the globe. We encourage the editorial staff of JobsintheMoney to read the report themselves (as they had not done before publishing this piece) to see that the survey results did not state nor indicate that the profession is stagnant, salaries are dormant, and internal auditors are struggling to gain respect from corporate management. This is actually all to the contrary.

Well, we will read the study, which Scott has now sent us. We'd received the IIA's original press release, but when we saw CFO's story, we thought it no small thing that a magazine of its reputation would cast such an eye on the results. The IIA believes we should have reviewed the study before running the pickup, but I think that misses the point. When one of the leading magazines in the financial world draws sobering conclusions from such an in-depth report, it's worth noting. (I don't agree with The Wall Street Journal's editorial line on the Iraq War, but that doesn't mean the it's not important to be aware of the newspaper's view.)

If any auditors have read either item - ours or CFO's - and want to chime in, I hope they'll post comments.

More coming on this, next week.