A review of corporate failures as described in the financial press, such as The Wall Street Journal, often describes the tone at the top as one of the major contributors to the failure. Often the tone at the top at the failed companies reflects a disdain for controls and an emphasis on accomplishing specific objectives perceived to be important by top management.

Required
a. Identify the key components an auditor will evaluate in assessing the control environment of an organization, and indicate how the auditor's assessment of the overall control environment of an organization should affect the design and conduct of an audit.
b. For each component of the control environment identified in part (a), indicate the information (and the sources of the information) the auditor would gather in evaluating the factor.
c. Briefly describe how the auditor should go about documenting the assessment of the client's control environment. Does the auditor's evaluation of the control environment need to be documented in a memo, or could it be documented in some other way? Explain.