A cognitive model for understanding fraudulent behavior in construction industry
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 31 December 2021
Issue publication date: 8 May 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Previous fraud studies focused on the influence of external environmental factors rather than the actor's own cognition or psychological factors. This paper aims to explore the influence of cognitive factors on people's intention to commit fraud in the construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A scenario-based questionnaire survey was conducted with 248 Chinese construction practitioners. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.
Findings
The findings showed that perceived threat possibility and perceived threat severity positively affected people's attitudes towards fraud. The reward for compliance and response cost had adverse effects on people's attitudes. Attitude towards fraud and response efficacy directly influenced people's intentions to commit fraud.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this study are that only behavioral intention data were collected, and a single scenario was designed. Despite these limitations, this study proposed a cognitive model to understand fraud in the construction industry and provided an empirical analysis using data from Chinese construction practitioners.
Originality/value
This study reveals the impact of cognitive factors on fraud in the construction industry. The results expand the understanding of fraud and propose a cognitive intervention framework to reduce fraud.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC-72171048, NSFC-71771052 and NSFC-72101053), and the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science project of China (Grant No. 21YJCZH008).
Citation
Hu, H., Deng, X. and Mahmoudi, A. (2023), "A cognitive model for understanding fraudulent behavior in construction industry", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 1423-1443. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-08-2021-0703
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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