The role of managers' attitude in corporate fraud: Extending auditing standards

Cahier de Recherche du Groupe HEC Paris, n° 900During the wave of corporate frauds involving companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat, auditors were under heavy criticism for failing to detect the frauds from the financial press as well as from regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Many argue (e.g., Benston and Hartgraves 2002) that these alleged audit failures are linked to the perceived lack of independence of auditors as a result of their offering both auditing and consulting services to their clients. However, a close analysis of professional auditing standards reveals that morals and ethics are perhaps not sufficiently emphasized as fraud risk factors. Based on anecdotal evidence from press articles related to 39 high profile alleged or acknowledged corporate frauds, this study uses the case analysis approach to apply the theory of planned behavior to document fraud cases. The results of the analysis suggest that morals, proxied by the concept of "attitudes", are a major fraud risk factor. Therefore, it is potentially important to strengthen the emphasis on morals and ethics in the auditing standards that are related to fraud detection