The Whonka Chocolate Company: Corporate governance & controls over financial reporting

Highlights: • The improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent on college campuses today. Yet these skills as very important for job success. • This case provides a resource that has successfully addressed these issues by having students create a written evaluation of the internal controls over financial reporting and corporate governance of the Whonka Chocolate Company. • The facts presented in the case are unstructured and disorganized requiring students to synthesize their evaluation of control weaknesses into the COSO Internal Control – Integrated Framework. • Students must use complex reasoning to apply knowledge regarding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the COSO Internal Control-Integrated Framework to assess a set of facts that incorporate seven of the most egregious frauds of the last two decades. • The case is appropriate for graduate and undergraduate accounting and auditing students.