The feasibility of implementing the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission enterprise risk management framework in South African small, medium and micro enterprises: a literature review

Small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) are capable of rejuvenating economies. Unsurprisingly governments, globally, focus on the promotion of SMMEs. South African SMMEs have high failure rates, attributable by the lack of risk management skills. Formal enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks enhance risk management processes, however South African SMMEs tend to not use any. The COSO ERM framework is a very popular ERM framework; this study aimed to ascertain whether its most recent version is feasible for South African SMMEs to implement. Non-empirical research was conducted as an exploratory literature review, which took on a qualitative research methodology. A total of 405 literature sources were identified and 99 were included and analysed based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. From the research conducted, it appears that the implementation of the most recent COSO ERM framework is feasible for implementation by South African SMMEs, at least in a theoretical dispensation.