On the one hand, despite increased investments in governance, risk management and compliance programs, control failures are still making headlines in the Nordics and Europe. On the other hand, the demands on businesses and their governance, risk management and compliance programs are ever more heightened, complex, frequent, and costly. Governance systems differ from one organization to another. There are several suggestions on why this is. Literature points to no one definition of a governance system, nor what makes one system different from another. Political and regulatory factors may play a role, in addition to basic factors, such as social structure (in the case of industrial relations) and the level and character of economic development (in case of financial systems). However, once a governance system has acquired its character, it rarely changes significantly in the organization.
