Family Owned Business Fraud: The Silent Thief

Abstract

The ACFE 2002 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse shows “The per-employee losses from fraud in the smallest businesses are 100 times the amount of their largest counterparts.” Further, major factors contributing to small business fraud include: inadequate employee prescreening; limited controls and too much trust. The focus of the paper is on issues raised by questions such as should family businesses be concerned about fraud and to what extent can control measures be adopted to help reduce losses caused by this condition? It is an examination of a survey sent to 167 female business owners and their responses to questions about fraud.