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The aim of this study is to approach the way in which corporate governance influences the occurrence of financial fraud, as expressed by the M-Beneish score. In order to get further into the topic, we have first computed a corporate governance score based on the comply-explain statement and then selected a few elements that are part of the corporate governance reporting: equilibrium of board members (EQUIL), independence of board members (INDEP), selection of the board members (NOM), remuneration policy (REM), audit committee (AUDIT) and the proportion of female directors on boards (GenF). They were tested, one by one, using the financial fraud score to see the way in which they interact.

The study is conducted on a sample of 65 companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) for the 2016–2022 period. The data were processed using three-stage general least square [general least squares (GLS), with iteration, igls and option] with a common first-order panel-specific autocorrelation correction, so as to explain how a poor adoption of the corporate governance score and its elements has a negative implication for the M-Beneish score, controlling for the auditor opinion, type of auditing company and if the company is privately owned.

The results support most of our research hypothesis, revealing that a poor adoption of the corporate governance score and its components – AUDIT, EQUIL, INDEP and GenF – negatively influences the M-Beneish score, i.e. a low corporate governance score will lead to an increase in financial fraud. This is an encouraging aspect, for an improved adoption of the corporate governance principles reduces the occurrence of financial fraud.

This is a study that concerns the relationship between corporate governance and financial fraud for the case study for Romania.

The study highlights the importance of adopting the corporate governance code applied to the Romanian business environment. By measuring the presence of financial fraud appearance through the M-Beneish score, we have managed to outline the negative relationship between the two components. Thus, it is an important aspect of which companies should take account, so they will have long-term benefits and ensure the continuity of the business.

The policy implications of this project are for policymakers, so that they will understand how a good corporate governance mechanism will enhance high-performing businesses. Different aspects regarding corporate governance were validated and are in the process of being validated. Managers can extract and try to understand and apply the good characteristics of corporate governance for the well-being of their companies. At a broader level, the macroeconomic environment will increase its own well-being while encouraging market players to enhance qualitative corporate governance reporting. There is no doubt that corporate governance has a positive impact on businesses.

The study highlights the importance of adopting the corporate governance code as applied to the Romanian business environment. By measuring the occurrence of financial fraud using the M-Beneish score, we have managed to outline the negative relationship between the two components. Therefore, this is an important aspect that companies should take into account in order to have long-term benefits and ensure the continuity of their business.

The paper investigates whether political geography, as measured by the degree of alignment of state politicians with the party of the USA President, has an impact on corporate fraud convictions.

Prior research shows that the degree of alignment between state politicians and the president's political party is positively correlated with measures of earnings management for firms headquartered in the state. Political alignment is conducive to earnings management because it affects a firm's information and enforcement environment by increasing policy risk and promoting lenient regulatory oversight. The paper posits that this environment is also conducive to corporate fraud and tests this hypothesis using pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel regressions with annual state-level data for 2003–2018.

The paper documents a positive and statistically significant relationship between political alignment and corporate fraud conviction rates by state.

The conclusions are tempered by data limitations. First, the conviction data are available at the state level only. Second, the true level of fraud is inherently unobservable and the conviction data may not reflect the actual number of frauds that are committed.

Fraud examiners might benefit from considering the role of political connectedness in determining fraud risk. Although additional research is needed before making concrete recommendations, the initial indications clearly point to political connections as a potential concern.

The findings build on evidence that political connections influence earnings management. Rather than focusing on direct measures of connectedness, such as lobbying expenditures, the paper examines a plausibly exogenous measure: political geography.

The study aims to yield evidence on the relation between the quality of governance characteristics and the firms' financial credibility involved in financial violations.

The study uses annual data ranging from 2000 to 2018. The sample consists of 154 nonfinancial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, comprising 77 fraudulent and 77 non-fraudulent companies. To examine the relationship between improvements in the governance structure and financial credibility of the firms, hypotheses are tested using the univariate analysis and multivariate regression model through the ordinary least square method.

The results affirm that fraud firms are possessed with poor governance structure compared to control firms in the pre-fraud year. The findings further imply that an improved governance structure brings foremost performance in stock price. The results of the study divulge that board of directors characteristic i.e. change in outside directors' percentage has a significant positive impact (β = 0.015, p = 0.05) on the financial credibility of the firms. The governance variables in terms of CEO-COB joint position has a significant negative (β = −0.824, p = 0.05) association with the financial credibility, which means that whenever CEO-COB joint position enhances, the financial credibility of the firms decreases. However, governance variables in the context of blockholders percentage has a significant positive (β = 0.13, p = 0.01) impact on financial credibility. The results of the study overall indicate that the governance structure has a significant influence on the financial performance of firms in the stock market.

The study provides an understanding of how fraudulent firms rehabilitate their governance structure and accrue economic benefits by the means of financial credibility after when the fraud is made public. It also adds to the literature in the area of corporate frauds specifically the role of governance structure in the financial performance of fraudulent firms in the stock market; this field is in its initial stage, even in developed countries, while, in developing countries, little work has been done.

This study aims to determine experimentally factors affecting the satisfaction of retail stock investors with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by the Government of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Also, an effort has been made to gauge the level of satisfaction of retail equities investors with the laws and guidelines developed by the Indian Government and SEBI for their invested funds.

To accomplish the study’s goals, a well-structured questionnaire was created with the help of a literature review, and copies of it were filled by Punjabi retail equities investors with the aid of stockbrokers, i.e. intermediaries. Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali-area intermediaries were chosen using a random selection procedure. Xerox copies of the questionnaire were given to the intermediaries, who were then asked to collect responses from their clients. Some intermediaries requested the researcher to sit in their offices to collect responses from their clients. Only 373 questionnaires out of 1,000 questionnaires that were provided had been received back. Only 328 copies were correctly filled by the equity investors. To conduct the analysis, 328 copies, which were fully completed, were used as data. The appropriate approaches, such as descriptives, factor analysis and ordinal regression analysis, were used to study the data.

With the aid of factor analysis, four factors have been identified that influence investors’ satisfaction with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by government and SEBI regulations, including regulations addressing primary and secondary market dealings, rules for investor awareness and protection, rules to prevent company malpractices and laws for corporate governance and investor protection. The impact of these four components on investor satisfaction has been investigated using ordinal regression analysis. The pseudo-R-square statistics for the ordinal regression model demonstrated the model’s capacity for the explanation. The findings suggested that a significant amount of the overall satisfaction score about the various investor protection measures implemented by the government/SEBI has been explained by the regression model.

A study could be conducted to analyse the perspective of various stakeholders towards the disclosures made and norms followed by corporate houses. The current study may be expanded to cover the entire nation because it is only at the state level currently. It might be conceivable to examine how investments made in the retail capital market affect investors in rural areas. The influence of reforms on the functioning of stock markets could potentially be examined through another study. It could be possible to undertake a study on female investors’ knowledge about retail investment trends. The effect of digital stock trading could be examined in India. The effect of technological innovations on capital markets can be studied.

This research would be extremely useful to regulators in developing policies to protect retail equities investors. Investors are required to be safeguarded and protected to deal freely in the securities market, so they should be given more freedom in terms of investor protection measures. Stock exchanges should have the potential to bring about technological advancements in trading to protect investors from any kind of financial loss. Since the government has the power to create rules and regulations to strengthen investor protection. So, this research will be extremely useful to the government.

This work has societal ramifications. Because when adequate rules and regulations are in place to safeguard investors, they will be able to invest freely. Companies will use capital wisely and profitably. Companies should undertake tasks towards corporate social responsibility out of profits because corporate houses are part and parcel of society only.

Many investors may lack the necessary expertise to make sound financial judgments. They might not be aware of the entire risk-reward profile of various investment options. However, they must know various investor protection measures taken by the Government of India & Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to safeguard their interests. Investors must be well-informed on the precautions to take while dealing with market intermediaries, as well as in the stock market.

This study aims to analyze corporate mail and wire fraud penalties, using bounded rationality in decision-making and assessing internal and external influences on prosecutorial choices.

The study analyzed 467 cases from 1992 to 2019, using data from the Corporate Prosecution Registry of the University of Virginia School of Law and Duke University School of Law. It examined corporations facing mail and wire fraud charges and other fraud crimes. Multiple regression linked predictor variables to the dependent variable, total payment.

The study found that corporate penalties tend to be lower for financial institutions or corporations in countries with US free trade agreements. Conversely, penalties are higher when the company is a U.S. public company or filed in districts with more pending criminal cases.

This study’s originality lies in applying the bounded rationality model to assess corporate prosecutorial decisions, unveiling external factors’ influence on corporate penalties.

Existing studies suggest that negative impacts emanating from corporate fraud revelations may diffuse to other firms through lower trust and lower market participation. Extending this literature stream, the authors examine whether corporate fraud revelations are associated with higher costs of raising capital through initial public offerings (IPOs) for industry peers.

The authors employ several analysis techniques including univariate analysis, multivariate regressions, propensity score matching methodology, and probit estimation. The sample consists of 3,015 US IPO firms for the 1996–2021 period.

By adopting US private securities class action lawsuits as a proxy for the presence of corporate fraud, the authors find that fraud revelations are associated with higher IPO underpricing, higher post-IPO stock return volatility and increased likelihood of withdrawal from the offering for industry peers. The findings are robust to alternative industry definitions and litigation proxies and to the inclusion of a battery of controls, including industry, state and year fixed effects.

This study presents private firms with an additional industry litigation factor to consider when assessing the marginal costs of going public.

This study aims to explore the relationship between fraud triangle theory (FTT) and the accounting fraud phenomenon in all listed companies in China.

The CSMAR database is used as the sample, including 16,063 data of all listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen markets for the 2010–2020 period. The authors also use quantitative methods, such as regression analysis, to investigate the relationship between five variables (cover three elements of FTT) and fraud occurrence.

Results show that leverage and liquidity ratios positively affect fraud detection, whereas return on net equity, audit size and independent director percentage negatively affect fraud detection.

This study enriches theoretical research on the causes of accounting fraud in China and is of great significance to the sound development of China’s capital market.

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

This paper aims to examine the extent of ethical values information disclosure on the top 100 Malaysian and Indonesian companies’ annual reports using coercive isomorphism under the institutional theory.

Using the content analysis, the presence or exclusion of ethical values information disclosed on 100 Malaysian and Indonesian companies’ annual reports using a newly developed Ethical Values Disclosure Index is carried out.

The results of the analysis found that Indonesian companies on average disclosed 31 items under study compared to 27 items disclosed by the companies in Malaysia. The results suggest that Indonesian companies are more vigilant in the code of ethics, companies policy on ethical issues, monitoring program and accountability, ethical performance, ethical infrastructure and organizational responsibility aspects, whereas their Malaysian counterparts are better in reporting governance and integrity committee or board of directors.

The findings may not be applicable to other countries in the same region, nevertheless, revealed the importance of adequate ethical values disclosure in determining the level of ethical behavior.

Companies in Indonesia are coercively pressed by various influential stakeholder groups to address ethical issues. The less disclosure regarding corporate ethical behavior may indicate that unethical practices continue to be a problem in the Malaysian corporate sector.

This paper adds to the literature by examining the elements of ethical values adapted mainly from the professional bodies that regulate the accounting profession and other organizations using the institutional theory, particularly in two countries.

This paper aims to discuss the impact of fraud on individuals’ wellbeing by drawing on insights from the academic literature. It also highlights literature gaps and suggests new avenues for future research.

This paper is based on a comprehensive literature review to gain insights into the impact of fraud on individuals’ wellbeing and identify literature gaps. The review is not limited to a particular date or a specific discipline.

The results reveal a general consensus in the literature that fraud severely and negatively impacts individuals’ wellbeing. Fraud’s impact on victims goes beyond financial hardship. It could result in stress, anger, upset, worries, fear of future victimisation, shame, loss of self-esteem, health deterioration, loss of confidence in financial matters, suicide ideation, unemployment, homelessness, less happiness and life satisfaction and broken relationships. However, research on how fraud impacts individuals’ wellbeing is scarce and has yet to receive substantial attention.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first comprehensive literature review compiling evidence on the impact of fraud on individuals’ wellbeing.