Accounting fraud: A literature review

Abstract

This paper explains the main features of accounting fraud across an examination of the current literature by putting the environment and the different ways to prevent fraud under a microscope. The study analyses in five steps how corporate governance, ethical behaviour, accounting manipulation, detection techniques and forensic accounting are related to fraud. After having reviewed the most relevant literature on the topic, it emerged that in order to avoid fraudulent behaviour in a company, it is important, mostly, to establish an ethical education between employees and executives. Therefore, this article examines how governance elements such as board, CEO, or remuneration, influence the occurrence of fraud inside companies. Last but not at least, it has been seen how the role of forensic accountant has revealed itself as being very useful for his varied expertise, which have been analysed, and has been positioned as one of the top 20 future jobs.