Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1936. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. "Tables of cases": p. 229-233. "Tables of statutes": p. 233. Bibliography: p. 235-236.

Casos de fraudes têm ocorrido, freqüentemente, no mercado mundial. Diversos são os profissionais envolvidos nestes casos, inclusive os da classe contábil. Os escândalos contábeis, especialmente os mais famosos, como os incididos nas empresas Enron e WordCom, acenderam para uma maior preocupação em relação à conduta ética dos profissionais de contabilidade. Como conseqüência, há uma maior exigência quanto à transparência e a fidedignidade das informações prestadas por estes profissionais. Esta preocupação visa, primordialmente, manter a confiança de empresas, investidores, fornecedores e da sociedade, dentre outras, na responsabilidade ética do contador, denegrida pelo envolvimento nas fraudes detectadas. Desta forma, o presente estudo teve como objetivo verificar a conduta ética dos contadores e técnicos em contabilidade quando, no exercício de suas atividades profissionais, se depararem com questões relacionadas a fraudes. Para tal, são considerados alguns fatores que podem tanto vir a influenciar o processo decisório ético de um indivíduo, demonstrados através do Modelo de tomada de decisão, desenvolvido por Alves, quanto motivar um indivíduo a cometer um ato fraudulento, evidenciados através do Modelo denominado Triângulo da Fraude, desenvolvido por Cressey. Buscando responder a questão norteadora desta pesquisa, executou-se a análise descritiva e estatística dos dados, com a utilização de técnicas não-paramétricas. Para a análise descritiva dos dados foram elaboradas as tabelas de freqüências e calculadas as medidas de posição e dispersão, através do cálculo dos valores da média, moda, mediana e desvio padrão, quando aplicáveis. Em relação à análise estatística dos dados, foram utilizados os testes não-paramétricos de Spearman e a Regressão logística Multivariada. Os resultados demonstraram que a maioria dos profissionais de contabilidade, da amostra pesquisada, reconhece a questão moral inserida nos cenários, discorda dos atos dos agentes de cada cenário e, ainda, classifica esses atos como graves ou muito graves. Entretanto, verificou-se que esses profissionais de contabilidade tendem a ter um posicionamento mais voltado para a teoria teleológica, uma vez que a intenção de agir é influenciada por alguns fatores, como a oportunidade, a racionalização e, principalmente, a pressão. Alguns fatores individuais também apresentaram influência sob o posicionamento ético dos profissionais entrevistados nesta pesquisa. / Cases of fraud have occurred, often, in the world market. Several are involved in these cases, including the accounting class. The accounting scandals, especially the most famous, such as focusing on companies and Enron WordCom, kindled to greater concern about the ethical conduct of professional accounting. As a result, there is a greater demand on the transparency and reliability of information provided by these professionals. This concern is aimed, primarily, to maintain the confidence of businesses, investors, suppliers and society, among others, the ethical responsibility of the meter, denigrated by involvement in the fraud detected. Thus, this study aimed to verify the ethical conduct of accountants and accounting technicians in when, in the exercise of their professional activities, are confronted with issues related to fraud. This is considered some factors that can both come to influence the ethical decision making of an individual, demonstrated by the model of decision making, developed by Alves, as a motivated individual to commit a fraudulent act, as evidenced by the model called Triangle of fraud, developed by Cressey. Seeking to answer question guiding this study, performed to exploratory and confirmatory analysis of data, using non-parametric techniques. For exploratory data analysis were made tables of frequencies and calculated the measures of position and dispersion, by calculating the values of average, mode, median and standard deviation, where applicable. For the confirmatory analysis of data, were used non-parametric tests of Spearman and multivariate logistic regression. The results showed that the majority of accounting professionals, the sample, recognizing the moral issue included in the scenarios, disagrees the acts of agents of each scenario, and also classifies such acts as serious or very serious. However, we found that these accounting professionals tend to have a position more toward the teleological theory, since the intention to act is influenced by factors such as opportunity, rationalization and particularly the pressure. Some individual factors also had influence on the ethical position of the professionals interviewed in this research.

The ability of auditors to detect fraud, including intentional material misstatements in earnings, remains key to the credibility of audit firms and confidence in capital markets. The PCAOB concludes from its most recent inspections of public company audits that auditors often fail to assess and respond to risks of material misreporting by management. In a behavioral experiment, this study concludes that auditors can increase sensitivity to management motivation to misreport by actively seeking to transform identified risk factors focused on the organization, into factors focused on top managers, and to evaluate whether these manager-focused risk factors represent incentives for personal gain or pressures to avoid a personal loss on the managers. Currently, auditing standards use incentive and pressure as interchangeable constructs, but auditors in this study assess pressure on managers to avoid a loss as a greater risk than an incentive to managers to attain a gain. Results also demonstrate that auditors will be made more sensitive to fraudulent financial reporting risk when focusing on pressure on top managers, than they will be by engaging in a traditional process of assessing total fraud risk based on the three fraud triangle elements. This study is the first to propose a theoretical explanation for why prior studies reflect auditor insensitivity to organizational level fraud risk factors. This study is also the first to enhance knowledge about auditor risk assessment and decision-making through the application of prospect theory and through disaggregation of one of the three elements of the fraud triangle model, by differentiating between incentive and pressure for misreporting earnings.

The major topic of this thesis is explanation of the idiom Fraud examination. It is based on comparison to standard financial audit in sense of verification of the financial statements of the company by independent auditor. There are also described the most common ways of business criminality which are divided by the principle of their commitment -- corruption, asset misappropriation and financial statement fraud. Subsequently there are described basic methods of forensic examination, requirements set on fraud examiners, tools used by examiner during his examination and conclusion of the fraud examination. Next part of the thesis introduces statistics of fraud occurrence in the USA and in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The very last part of the thesis deals with particular forensic examination which took place in Czech television in 2000.

Thesis is focused on problems of fraudulent actions especially in the sphere of economic crime, the detection of undesirable activities and preventive measures. Are constantly new forms and methods of committing economic crimes, and this trend will be reflected in subsequent years.

The aim of my master thesis is to analyze the issue of insurance frauds. Theoretical part of the thesis familiarizes readers with the term insurance fraud, legislative in the Czech Republic, types of insurance frauds as well as with the ways to fight against insurance frauds. Practical part mainly covers the statistical and econometrical analysis of the size of detected insurance frauds in 2007-2014. Using econometrical analysis program Eviews is chosen the most suitable model for a time series and designed forecasts for years 2015 and 2016. The end of the thesis itself concludes economical interpretation of empirically measured and forecasted values.

The thesis deals with the forensic investigation whose aim is to reveal fraudulent behavior and evaluate internal control system. The first part of the thesis describes the most common types of fraud and defines key circumstances leading to fraudulent behavior. Further the forensic investigation and its output is discussed in detail. Also all the parts of the investigation are described with the specific options which can be used by an investigator to obtain enough information and achieve his goal. In conclusion, two real forensic investigations are described. Those two cases represent a check of entrusted funds usage. Finally, the outcomes of these investigations are evaluated and compared.

The subject of this Master thesis is an application of fraud detection softwares. Except computer assisted audit tools and techniques and fraud management systems thesis deal with new methods like using neural network model or logistic regresion model.The thesis also contains comparison of the best softwares for fraud examinations.

Whereas the problem of fraud is a global one, the rate and extent to which it is perpetrated in Nigeria, particularly in the public sector, is quite high and alarming. Literature reveals that different fraud prevention and detection mechanisms are being adopted to combat the menace of fraud; forensic accounting techniques appears to be the most effective and are currently used in most developed countries of the world. However, the extent to which forensic accounting techniques are being applied in fraud prevention and detection in Nigeria is not known. Also, the intention to use forensic accounting services in the public service has not been investigated. This study was therefore aimed at examining the application of forensic accounting techniques in fraud prevention and detection in Nigeria. Specific objectives were: (1) to investigate the mechanisms of fraud prevention and detection, and their levels of effectiveness in Nigeria, (2) to identify the major factors that hinder the application of forensic accounting techniques in fraud prevention and detection in Nigeria, (3) to examine practitioners' opinions and behavioural intention to use forensic accounting techniques in fraud prevention and investigation in Nigeria, (4) to explore the level of awareness of forensic accounting techniques in Nigeria and (5) to examine the readiness of universities in taking up forensic accounting courses. The study involved the collection of quantitative data. These data were collected from three sets of populations, viz. accounting students, accounting academics and accounting practitioners. The questionnaire served as the survey instruments. The data collected were analysed using appropriate statistical techniques and computer software. The study identified several fraud prevention and detection mechanisms that are currently used in Nigeria, such as systems of internal controls, operational audits and corporate code of conduct. Students' t-test indicates a significant difference between the perceived effectiveness and actual usage of fraud prevention and detection mechanisms in Nigeria. It was further discovered that the most effective mechanisms, like the forensic accounting techniques, are the least used in fraud prevention and detection. This implies that the current mechanisms of fraud prevention and detection are not proactive in dealing with the fraud menace. Also, legal, educational and political factors were identified to hinder the application of forensic accounting techniques in Nigeria. The level of awareness in forensic accounting in Nigeria is generally low. While the one-way analysis of variance indicates a significant variation among the three populations, it was discovered that students had the lowest level of awareness. Further findings of the study reveal that the universities are not yet ready to take up forensic accounting courses. Using the structural equation modelling (SEM), all the other seven propositions were supported. The findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it further strengthened the findings of previous studies on the organisational intention. From the practical point of view, there is urgent need for manpower development in universities with specialisation in forensic accounting. Again, the educational institutions, and particularly the universities in Nigeria, would need to include forensic accounting courses in the undergraduate curriculum as education has been shown to be pivotal in creating awareness on the use of forensic accounting techniques. Furthermore, from the sampled space, the study has captured the current state of forensic accounting in Nigeria and the findings will be very useful for the public service, private organisations and policy makers.

The perpetration of accounting fraud still remains a prevalent and significantly costly issue in today's business world. The names Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, and Madoff are still all too recent reminders of the devastating cost of financial statement fraud. Management accountants, as preparers of these statements, are in the best position to detect such fraud. Yet there exists no current measurement instrument or methodology designed to measure a management accountant's intention to report fraud. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs, concepts, and antecedents that provide the motivation to, or the deterrent from, the reporting of fraudulent accounting activity when witnessed by professional management accountants, and develop an instrument that might measure that motivation. The theoretical basis that framed this research was the Theory of Planned Behavior which provides for an analysis of a participant's attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control in the development of the intention to perform a specific behavior. The population studied was the U.S. membership of the Institute of Management Accountants, and grant assistance and support was provided by the Institute's Research Foundation. The sample from this population formed a very appropriate representation of experienced, professional management accountants. . No previous research involving this population with the application of the Theory of Planned Behavior and the investigation of the reporting of fraudulent accounting activity had been conducted. Therefore, there were no existing survey instruments that could be applied. The development of an original survey questionnaire to specifically address this research was required. The distribution of this survey questionnaire resulted in 285 complete and usable responses. These responses measured the strength of the participant's positive or negative beliefs concerning the antecedents related to the three exogenous constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior - attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, and the endogenous construct of intention. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with measured variables was chosen as the methodology for the analysis of the results measured in the survey responses. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was applied to each construct individually, and construct items were modified to obtain the most reasonable model fit, validity, and reliability. Items were combined into composites to represent the constructs of interest in the theory, as measured by the survey. The relations among the constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior were then specified using these composites in an SEM model. The results of the data and the findings of the SEM model indicated that professional management accountants form a strong positive intention to report the witnessing of accounting fraud. The positive beliefs that formed the exogenous variables that showed statistically significant effects on the endogenous variable of the formation of a positive intention to report fraudulent accounting activity were: support of the system of internal control, prevention of financial loss, retention of the integrity and ethical values of the profession, perceived support of significant others, and limited impediment due to fear of retaliation. A surprising result was that 32% of all respondents indicated a lack of easy/any access to an anonymous fraud reporting hotline, which is an issue for further research. This study provides additional insight into the concepts, beliefs, and antecedents that form a professional management accountant's intention to report fraudulent accounting activity. The study also presents the basis of a preliminary instrument for the measurement of the intention of management accountants to report fraudulent accounting activity. Further research is suggested for the identification of additional concepts, antecedents, and beliefs related to fraud reporting and for the development of an even more effective measurement instrument.