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This paper aims to propose the application of the Crime Triangle of Routine Activity Theory to fraud events as a complement to the universally accepted Fraud Triangle.

The application of the Crime Triangle is illustrated using scenarios of asset misappropriations by type of perpetrator: external perpetrator, employee, management and the board and its governing bodies.

The Crime Triangle complements the Fraud Triangle’s perpetrator-centric focus by examining the environment where fraud occurs and the relevant parties that play their role in preventing fraud or not playing their role, and thus, allowing the occurrence of fraud. Applying both triangles to a fraud event provides a comprehensive view of the fraud event.

The scenarios are limited to asset misappropriations with one perpetrator. Future research can apply both triangles to different types of fraud and cases where perpetrators collude to commit fraud.

This paper maps the Crime Triangle to the Fraud Triangle to provide forensic accounting practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive perspective of a fraud event. This comprehensive perspective of fraud is the starting point to designing fraud risk management strategies that address both the perpetrator and the environment where the fraud event occurs.

This paper is the first to propose the application of the established Crime Triangle environmental criminology theory as a complement to the Fraud Triangle to obtain a comprehensive perspective of a fraud event.

Cressey’s Fraud Triangle has been referenced in 8,584 studies and academic papers [1] and is a stalwart of training courses for accounting and audit practitioners and fraud investigators. The Fraud Triangle has endured for three decades in the academic and practitioner worlds. This study aims to explore the origins of Cressey’s Fraud Triangle and challenge its practical value to a fraud investigator.

This study has developed from analysis of a targeted literature review carried out as part of a wider study into occupational fraud and corruption.

Cressey’s name is intrinsically linked to the Fraud Triangle, although he never used the expression during his lifetime. Two of the three motivational factors identified by Cressey (1953) were developed from the earlier work of Svend Riemer (1941), who it is suggested should have equal billing with Donald Cressey for the concepts that led to the creation of the Fraud Triangle.

The paper illustrates the limitations of Cressey’s Fraud Triangle for practitioners.

Many academics and researchers have either misunderstood Cressey’s role in the development of the Fraud Triangle or been unaware of its true origins. Although the pioneering work of Riemer is referenced in a 2014 study on the Fraud Triangle by Alexander Schuchter and Michael Levi, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to identify the influence of Riemer on Cressey’s thinking and the development of the Fraud Triangle.

Fraud omnipresent in the media, the corporate world and the academic literature has attracted a great deal of research interest. Fraud and its various types and forms have been characterized as significant contributing factors to the development of severe financial crises. Recurrent financial crimes in both the private and the public sectors remind us that fraud and its negative consequences paralyze economic entities all over the world. Understanding the multidimensional nature of fraud is key to prevent and detect it. This paper aims to examine the dominant fraud triangle model framework and its variants developed in the accounting literature to provide the etiology of fraud.

Having identified the fraud theory developed so far, we provide a theoretical framework for international fraud triangle.

Understanding the multidimensional nature of fraud is key to prevent and detect it. This paper examines the dominant fraud triangle model framework and its variants developed in the accounting literature to provide the etiology of fraud. Drawing on theoretical insights and useful criticism of the fraud triangle, this paper proposes an international fraud triangle model framework to help auditors, managers, regulators and academics in understanding fraud holistically in the private and public sector in a global context. The authors finally provide an overview of fraud in the Greek Context.

This paper proposes an international fraud triangle model framework.

The purpose of this study is to examine the existing literature on the fraud triangle. The fraud triangle framework, popularized by Donald Cressey and W. Steve Albrecht, has been used to explain financial crimes since the 1940s. The theory includes that workplace financial crime and fraud occurs only when an offender has sufficient opportunity, pressure and rationalization to commit the crime. The fraud triangle has been empirically applied to the array of criminal behaviors and specific financial crimes and offenders internationally to determine if all three elements are necessary for the crimes to occur.

This systematic review summarized 33 empirical studies that have applied all three components of the fraud triangle to study financially criminal behavior committed by both corporations and individuals. The review included published and non-published papers and manuscripts from a variety of sources internationally.

Of the 33 studies included, 32 found support for at least one element of the fraud triangle and 27 found support for all three elements. Overall, these studies have shown that the fraud triangle has generally received support across different subjects, industries and countries.

This research only examined papers using the “fraud triangle” term.

This paper systematically reviewed different types of studies internationally, concluding that the fraud triangle is largely valid internationally as an explanation for financial crimes.

The purpose of this paper is to show a significant overlap in the models accounting research uses for fraud and the models other research disciplines use for greenwashing, and show how researchers and policymakers interested in the application of effective sustainability policy can draw from fraud accounting literature to better understand, and therefore, combat greenwashing. This is illustrated by showing multi-actor information-asymmetry models from other branches of accounting literature and synthesizing them with the fraud triangle model to suggest new avenues for reducing greenwashing and strengthening corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This paper reviews the current literature surrounding the greenwashing aspect of corporate camouflage compares the legal and technical definitions of fraud and synthesizes a new variant fraud triangle that more usefully describes greenwashing.

This paper is able to show that other areas of accounting research in North America have already tackled similar systems of multiple actors in an information-asymmetric environment and that a recurring trait is the emergence of a more robust reporting system. CSR reporting is currently in the process of emerging and could develop more swiftly by copying extant fraud-fighting tools. This is particularly salient given the increasing amount of liability legal regimes are giving to both sustainability activities and sustainability reporting from firms, as evidenced in both guidelines and scandals over the past decade.

Sustainability reporting is not unique in comprising a large number of interrelated entities with non-financial information asymmetry between actors. Previous researchers have encountered similar situations in government accounting and public administration and developed network models to study these relationships as a result. In government accounting, this led to the development both of better diagnostic tools for further research and better models for local governments to use to prevent fraud and malfeasance. This paper suggests that using such research methods in the area of CSR will allow for the development of similarly-useful tools and models.

Visualizing greenwashing as a form of fraud allows policymakers to use tools from the fraud-fighting literature to improve CSR reporting and produce a more robust regime in the future. As governments increasingly seek to respond effectively to material misstatements with an intent to deceive in sustainability reports, understanding the underlying information asymmetry as it is found in other private-public interfaces is critical. Similarly, researchers can analyze CSR reporting through the lens of fraud researchers to gain novel insights into how information asymmetry in CSR reporting works.

Greenwashing is not traditionally seen as a form of fraudulent reporting, even though it often meets the same technical test used to determine fraudulent reporting. The realization that the two are structurally similar allows the authors to better understand how CSR reporting works and how CSR reporting can be falsified. By understanding the latter, governments, firms and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can develop tools to prevent CSR reporting from being falsified.

This paper suggests a new suite of tools with which to study greenwashing, and with which to fight greenwashing in a sustainability accounting context.

The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between personality traits and students’ cheating behavior using the five-factor personality model and the fraud triangle factors. This chapter develops an evidential study that has the goal to determine the relationship between the students’ cheating behavior and personality traits by using fraud triangle factors. In this context, 251 surveys have been conducted on students of a foundation university located in Istanbul. As means of data collection, NEO – Five Factor Inventory and Academic Fraud Risk Factors have been used. Data have been analyzed by regression tree analysis. Risk and classification tables have been created before starting the study with a decision tree in which classification and regression trees algorithms were implemented. The results reveal that rationalization behind the cheating is the most important reason for students to copy and people who believed that they were extremely appropriate to copy were responsible ones when analyzed in terms of their personality traits. The results of this study contribute to the literature by discovering the characteristics of those who admit academic dishonesty and underlie the factors or predispositions for engaging in this behavior. For sure, three factors of the fraud triangle may have different levels of significance in this study; in addition, pressure is not associated with the cheating behavior.

Recent research has confirmed an underlying economic logic that connects each of the three vertices of the “fraud triangle” – a fundamental criminological model of factors driving occupational fraud. It is postulated that in the presence of economic motivation and opportunity (the first two vertices of the fraud triangle), the likelihood of an occupational fraud happening in an organization increases substantially if the overall organization culture is perceived as being slack toward fraud as it helps potential fraudsters in rationalizing their actions (rationalization being the third vertex of the fraud triangle). This paper aims to offer a viable approach for collecting and processing of data to identify and operationalize the key factors underlying employee perception of organization culture toward occupational frauds.

This paper reports and analyses the results of a pilot study conducted using a convenience sampling approach to identify and operationalize the key factors underlying employee perception of organization culture with respect to occupational frauds. Given a very small sample size, a numerical testing technique based on the binomial distribution has been applied to test for significance of the proportion of respondents who agree that a lenient organizational culture toward fraud can create a rationalization for fraud.

The null hypothesis assumed no difference in the population proportions between those who agree and those who disagree with the view that a lenient organizational culture toward fraud can create a rationalization for fraud. Based on the results of the numerical test, the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alternative that the population proportion of those who agree with the stated view in fact exceeded the proportion of those who disagreed.

The obvious limitation is the very small size of the sample obtained because of an extremely low rate of response to the survey questionnaires. However, while of course a much bigger data set needs to be collected to develop a generalizable prediction model, the small sample was enough for the purpose of a pilot study.

This paper makes two distinct practical contributions. First, it posits a viable empirical research plan for identifying, collecting and processing the right data to identify and operationalize the key underlying factors that capture an employee’s perception of organizational culture toward fraud as a basis for rationalizing an act of fraud. Second, it demonstrates via a small-scale pilot study that a more broad-based survey can indeed prove to be extremely useful in collating the sort of data that is needed to develop a computational model for predicting the likelihood of occupational fraud in any organization.

This paper provides a viable framework which empirical researchers can follow to test some of the latest advances in the “fraud triangle” theory. It outlines a systematic and focused data collection method via a well-designed questionnaire that is effectively applicable to future surveys that are scaled up to collect data at a nationwide level.

This article aims to review popular frameworks used to examine fraud and earmarks three areas where there is considerable scope for academic research to guide and inform important debates within organisations and regulatory bodies.

The article reviews published fraud research in the fields of auditing and forensic accounting, focusing on the development of the dominant framework in accounting and fraud examination, the fraud triangle. From this review, specific avenues for future research are identified.

Three under-researched issues are identified: rationalisation of fraudulent behaviours by offenders; the nature of collusion in fraud; and regulatory attempts to promote whistle-blowing. These topics highlight the perspective of those directly involved in fraud and draw together issues that have interested researchers in other disciplines for decades with matters that are at the heart of contemporary financial management across the globe.

In spite of the profound economic and reputational impact of fraud, the research in accounting remains fragmented and emergent. This review identifies avenues offering scope to bridge the divide between academia and practice.

Accounting-based financial scandals caused by fraudulent financial reports negatively affect the financial markets and cause loss of confidence in investors. Financial reporting quality needs to be improved in order to build and maintain trust in financial markets. To increase the quality of financial reports, fraudulent financial reporting risks should be defined. At this point, regulators, practitioners, and researchers are in constant search.

There are improved approaches to the detection of financial reporting frauds in the literature. Many studies have been conducted on the “Fraud Triangle Theory” and the “Fraud Diamond Theory” approaches. The Fraud Triangle Theory argues that while fraudulent action is taking place in defining the elements of press, rationalization, and opportunity, the Fraud Diamond Theory approach argues that in order to achieve these three elements, the capability to carry out a fraud in individuals must be improved.

In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effect of Fraud Diamond elements on fraudulent financial reports. For the scope of the research, data of 26 companies from Manufacturing Industry enterprises operating in BORSA ISTANBUL between 2013 and 2017 were used. Financial reports of the companies are divided into two groups: (1) Fraudulent Financial Reports and (2) Non-Fraud Financial Reports. The hypotheses developed within the scope of the research were tested using the Logistic Regression analysis in IBM SPSS Statistic 20 program.

As a result of the study, it has been determined that there is a negative correlation between borrowing level, asset profitability, independent audit firm, auditor exchanges and institutionalization level, and fraudulent financial reports. It was understood that the change in assets and the size of the audit committee did not have any effect on the fraudulent financial reports.

In recent years, Public Accountability and Integrity have been matters of growing attention, both in the public and private sector, as citizens demand value for money entrusted to the governments through their taxes. In addition, in many countries, after the recent recession, government budgets and corporate returns have been reduced. Many corporate scandals have occasionally become known and have had a great impact on confidence in the market. Even worse, after the pandemic of COVID-19, «bare and exacerbated massive preexisting problems in the world’s economic, social and security order, threatens to push up to 100 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, struck at a time of dwindling trust in representative governance» (UNDP, 2020). The funds of organizations in the private and public sector have been shrinking, whereas the situational pressures of fraud are increased. In this context, Dorris, President and CEO of the ACFE warns for explosion of fraud in the coming years and reminds that during the 2008 economic, companies cut-off, non-revenue generating activities, such as the internal audit and the compliance departments leaving them exposed to fraud. Therefore, organizations have to do more with less. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of the fraud theory on the management’s perspective aiming to contribute to the efficient development of anti-fraud mechanisms

Having identified the fraud theory developed so far, we provide a framework for the fraud risk management.

This paper incorporates cost/benefits considerations, practical considerations and empirical evidence on fraud.

This paper provides valuable information to enable the management, who has the primary responsibility to prevent and detect fraud, to disclaim responsibility by broadening their understanding of fraud theory.