Shared drive permissions become the real escalation path once formal owner fields sit empty. Every late-week requisition routes to whoever still holds edit rights on the folder that stores the signed forms.
The mechanism persists because IT never revoked access when the original approver moved teams. The folder link still works, the PDF template still opens, and the signature block still accepts the substitute name.
Finance teams learn the pattern quickly. They stop chasing the listed contact and simply drop the file into the folder that triggers the correct downstream workflow. That folder now carries more decision weight than the published RACI chart.
Vendors notice the same shortcut. They send revised quotes directly to the person whose name appears in the folder metadata rather than the contract manager named in the system. Speed beats protocol every Friday.
Audit logs later show the approvals arrived on time. They never record that the person who clicked accept had no formal delegation and no line of sight into current spend limits.
Rebuilding the mapping requires someone to own the folder structure itself. Most organisations treat that ownership as housekeeping rather than a core control, so the drift compounds each quarter.
Fix the mechanism first. Audit every shared location that holds signed approvals and strip permissions that outlast role changes. Then update the visible escalation paths so they actually match the places work already moves.