{"title":"The Fraud Goes On: The Effects of Fraud Duration, Victim Organization Type, and Perpetrator Status","authors":"Erlina Papakroni, Marie M. Rice, Lisa M. Dilks","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2020-027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2020-027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 When occupational fraud is detected, the organization—the victim in the fraud case—decides whether or not to terminate and/or refer the case to law enforcement for possible prosecution. We use survey data collected by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) to examine the impact of fraud duration, organization type, and perpetrator status on a victim organization’s decision to pursue a particular punishment outcome against the principal perpetrator. We find that fraud duration is an important attribute in determining whether and how victim organizations pursue punishments. Furthermore, fraud duration interacts with victim organization type and with perpetrator status to influence the punishment outcome selected by the victim organization. Our study contributes to the fraud literature by considering the interactions between perpetrator and victim organization characteristics on punishment outcomes and has practical implications for victim organizations and the certified fraud examiners who advise them.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).\u0000 JEL Classifications: M40; M41; M49; L32; L33.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117196026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Melvin A. Lamboy-Ruiz, Britton A. McKay, Andrea M. Scheetz
{"title":"Do No Harm: Whistleblowing on Medicare Fraud","authors":"Melvin A. Lamboy-Ruiz, Britton A. McKay, Andrea M. Scheetz","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2021-015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2021-015","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The high incidence of healthcare fraud in the United States resulted in the creation of multiple outlets to report fraud, such as the Medicare Hotline, the Office of the Inspector General, and the filing of False Claim Act lawsuits associated with whistleblower rewards. Despite the high incidence, examinations of whistleblowing factors in this industry, such as whistleblowers’ professional roles and fraud types, are scarce, and the interaction effects of these factors are unknown. In this study, participants from two different professional roles disclose their likelihood of reporting Medicare fraud through the aforementioned three reporting outlets conditional on two different billing fraud types. The results indicate that although workers in both professional roles show similar likelihoods to report fraud regardless of the reporting outlet, fraud type and its interaction with the professional role influence some but not all the reporting likelihoods.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128194299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reputation Repair after a Restatement: The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure","authors":"Lei Dong, Y. K. Wang","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2021-025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2021-025","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Issuing restatements undermines market value and management reputation. Using an experiment, this study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure can repair the damaged reputation following a restatement. Two aspects of CSR information are considered—presence of CSR disclosure and source of CSR disclosure. The results show that disclosing positive CSR activities is an effective way to repair management reputation and enhance investment interest. Also, there is an incremental benefit if investors receive CSR information from an independent source. This study contributes to the limited literature on the effectiveness of corrective actions after a restatement by demonstrating that individual investors’ judgments and decisions after a prominent trust-damaging event, i.e., financial restatement, are affected by both the presence and the source of CSR information. This study contributes to the literature by providing direct, experimental evidence in accounting on CSR disclosure as a reputation-restoring mechanism after a restatement.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129650931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Investigation of Misreporting Choice, Team Membership, and Task Similarity on Whistleblowing Decisions","authors":"Alyssa S. J. Ong, Xin Geng","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2022-020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2022-020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Individuals in their roles at work may have the opportunity to commit fraud. They may also be in a position to witness the occurrence of fraud in the workplace. In this study, we examine how individuals' prior decision to commit fraud influences their subsequent decision to whistleblow on another person when (1) the person is in the same team as them or (2) the other person is committing fraud on the same/different task as they did. With two between-subject experiments, we find that individuals who decided to commit fraud are less likely to whistleblow on another fraudster than individuals who decided not to commit fraud. We also find that individuals are more likely to whistleblow on other fraudsters who belong to the same team (task) as them than on fraudsters on a different team (task). The results suggest that heightened team identification can be a powerful means to accentuate whistleblowing.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available upon request.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131178073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Detecting Financial Statement Fraud through Multidimensional Analysis of Text Readability","authors":"Fang Yang, J. David, C. Chang","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2021-019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2021-019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study uses Coh-Metrix to analyze multiple dimensions of readability of the MD&A section of the SEC Form 10-K. We incorporate the five main Coh-Metrix components of text easability (word concreteness, syntactic simplicity, referential cohesion, deep cohesion, and narrativity) into a logistic model to test their predictive power for financial misreporting. We find that compared to the MD&As of nonfraud firms, the MD&As of fraud firms connect clauses and sentences less coherently, use more story-like language, and show a higher number of vague and abstract words. Thus, referential cohesion, narrativity, and word concreteness significantly enhance predictive ability in fraud detection. The Coh-Metrix readability measures enhance the linguistic complexity assessment beyond traditional readability measures, such as the Fog Index and the Flesch Indexes. Financial analysts and investors can utilize the Coh-Metrix readability measures to supplement traditional readability measures and common financial statement variables in predicting financial misreporting.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.\u0000 JEL Classifications: G32; K42; M41; M48.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124830908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lee M. Dunham, John Garcia, Jaime L. Grandstaff, Sijing Wei
{"title":"Do Employees Waive Financial Red Flags through the Glassdoor?","authors":"Lee M. Dunham, John Garcia, Jaime L. Grandstaff, Sijing Wei","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2022-008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2022-008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We use Glassdoor employee rating measures to examine the relationship between employee perceptions about their employer and the employer’s level of financial distress, proxied by Bloomberg’s one-year default probability. Our results indicate that improvements (deterioration) in Glassdoor ratings reveal a decrease (increase) in the average firm’s level of financial distress. We also find that the relation between a firm’s level of financial distress and Glassdoor ratings is not uniform across all firms: the relation is stronger for small and mid-capitalization firms. By establishing a relationship between Glassdoor ratings and the level of financial distress, our study adds to the forensic accounting literature and shows that Glassdoor ratings can help auditors, regulators, investors, and market participants predict future concerns relating to financial distress. Our results suggest that employee perceptions provide an early warning for financial red flags, as the pressures from financial distress increase the risk of fraudulent behaviors.\u0000 Data Availability: On request.\u0000 JEL Classifications: G33; G41; M14; M41.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128330784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Fraud Diamond Capability Measures on Fraud Occurrence","authors":"Barbara Arel, Michael J. Tomas, Larry Stark","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2021-024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2021-024","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 An organization can lose up to 5 percent of its revenue to fraud (ACFE 2020) making the ability to effectively prevent and detect accounting fraud essential to many stakeholders. Auditors typically use the fraud triangle framework consisting of pressure, opportunity and rationalization to understand fraud risks factors. The fraud diamond extends the fraud triangle to include an additional risk factor, capability (Wolfe and Hermanson 2004). This study uses an experimental task to analyze the effect of individual fraud diamond components of capability on the likelihood of committing fraud. The results show that capability components of ego, intelligence, and ability to cope with stress significantly influence the likelihood of committing fraud. Results also show including fraud diamond capability components improve the ability to predict the likelihood of fraud.\u0000 Data Availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the first author upon request.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126858645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mackenzie M. Festa, Megan M. Jones, Kevin G. Knotts
{"title":"A Qualitative Review of Fraud Surrounding COVID-19 Relief Programs","authors":"Mackenzie M. Festa, Megan M. Jones, Kevin G. Knotts","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2022-029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2022-029","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, we profile coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relief program frauds and agencies tasked with investigating those related crimes. Using a unique dataset of Department of Justice (DOJ) press releases from March 2020 to February 2022 relating to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Securities (CARES) Act, we qualitatively examine characteristics (e.g., wrongdoing, perpetrators, organizations affected, and collusions versus single actors) of approximately $2.6 billion of alleged fraud across the various relief programs. The most egregious fraud cases involved the abuse of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and/or multiple CARES Act relief programs. Although there is some collusive fraud, most cases list only a single defendant. Lastly, we provide evidence suggesting a high degree of collaboration across agencies in the investigative process. These results also can help practitioners and academics better understand fraudulent activities of federal programs.\u0000 Data Availability: The data are available from the authors.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134067742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lucas Martins Dias Maragno, Christopher J. Skousen, Jose Alonso Borba
{"title":"Whistleblowing Research: Experimental Method Choices from Accounting and Management","authors":"Lucas Martins Dias Maragno, Christopher J. Skousen, Jose Alonso Borba","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2021-004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2021-004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper reviews whistleblowing experimental research in accounting and management and provides methodological guidance to new scholars. Based on a sample of 49 experimental papers, we summarized key issues, such as research design, task, dependent variable, and subject selection. Overall, we find that journals classified as accounting are more concentrated in experimental research and management journals are more diverse in terms of methodologies. Thus, whistleblowing experimental research from both areas is largely characterized by vignette-based studies. Accounting articles focused primarily on misappropriation of assets and fraudulent financial reporting, whereas management articles focused more broadly on unethical behavior. Also, some articles controlled for social desirability bias on the dependent variable. Finally, there is a predominance of the use of M.B.A. and postgraduate students in accounting studies and undergraduate studies in management. This paper is intended to further our understanding of experimental design choices and facilitate future research in this emerging field.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130495274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Tales of a White-Collar Criminal: Can You Ever Ethically Recover?","authors":"Susan A. Henderson, Tatyana S. Ryabova","doi":"10.2308/jfar-2020-031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jfar-2020-031","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This case study presents guidelines on introducing real-world, white-collar fraud scenarios into the classroom by promoting critical thinking and utilizing three steps: identify, analyze, and conclude. This paper encourages educators to incorporate presentations from former white-collar criminals into classroom discussions. Our case study was tested by inviting our students to a presentation given by the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Enron, Mr. Andrew Fastow, about his white-collar crimes. Based on a voluntary survey provided to the students after completion, we found that case study drastically increased student interest in ethics. They reported gaining a new perspective and becoming more aware of ethical and unethical behaviors; they were better prepared to face ethical dilemmas in the future. This case can be adopted for any former white-collar criminal speaker.","PeriodicalId":149240,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Forensic Accounting Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121226754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}