Population Attitudes Towards Committing Fraud in Serbian Companies

Abstract

Fraud in companies, regardless of its scope and shape, creates some loss not only for the company, but very often for the wider community. Moreover, no company in the world is immune to fraud, be it small or large, in one country or another, at any level of economic and social development. Practical experience has shown that fraud, as well as damage it causes, is inevitable. For these reasons, preventing and detecting all forms of fraud in companies’ operations is very important. To prevent fraud, companies need to understand what motivates people to manipulate and make financial loss. Theorists cite a number of factors that motivate fraud perpetrators to commit manipulation, but all agree that, to commit fraud, three things need to be matched: motivation, opportunity and rationalization. For this reason, the research subject in this paper is a detailed analysis of all the factors that motivate and create opportunities for people of Serbia to commit fraud in companies, as well as the most common excuses they use to justify their manipulations. We surveyed 306 respondents to analyze their motives for possible fraud, as well as their attitude on the number and forms of fraud in the business operations of Serbian companies.