Topics and methods in forensic accounting research

Abstract

Purpose – The purposes of this paper are to highlight those topics of forensic accounting that have received little or no attention in the forensic accounting research that has been published in forensic accounting research journals; discover what research methods have been most commonly used; and identify research methods that have been infrequently used. Design/methodology/approach – This is a descriptive research study that explores the topics and methods used in forensic accounting research published in forensic accounting journals. Findings – Fraud and quantitative methods make up the largest percentage of topics and research methods published in forensic accounting journals. Research limitations/implications – Limited to forensic accounting journals. Results suggest forensic accounting researchers are using mimetic topics and methods of accounting research. The absence of diversity in forensic accounting research topics and methods has the potential to compromise the overall contribution of forensic accounting research. Practical implications – This paper identifies gaps in topics and research methods in forensic accounting research to encourage research in diverse topics using diverse methods that will be valuable to forensic accountants. Originality/value – This original research is the first to survey and classify research published in forensic accounting journals according to topic and method.

Mitigating Corruption Using Forensic Accounting Investigation Techniques

“…There is near consensus in the literature that forensic accounting is a modern method of financial crime investigation (Adegbie & Fakile, 2012;DiGabriele & Huber, 2015;Popoola, 2014;Dong, 2011;Italia, 2012;Rezaee & Burton, 1997) and that it has emerged as response to the growing rate of fraud and other corporate scandals across the globe. This position is what the participants of this study incline to, even though some have held the position that some aspects of forensic have been existence and for a long time in use.…”

Strengths and weaknesses of forensic accounting: an implication on the socio-economic development

“…Most forensic accounting researchers focus on the narrow approach of forensic accounting (Howieson, 2018), which mainly considers fraud investigation topics. Thus, forensic accounting faces a real problem to evolve as a discipline and profession (Huber and DiGabriele, 2015). In the theoretical contribution to forensic accounting research, the notable theoretical contributions and theoretical applications in forensic accounting research are the fraud triangle theory that has been subsequently developed by adding the fourth element to be fraud diamond theory (Free, 2015).…”

“…In the theoretical contribution to forensic accounting research, the notable theoretical contributions and theoretical applications in forensic accounting research are the fraud triangle theory that has been subsequently developed by adding the fourth element to be fraud diamond theory (Free, 2015). However, there is a need to expand the use of various theories in forensic accounting research (Huber and DiGabriele, 2015). In the methodological contribution to forensic accounting research, Huber and DiGabriele (2015) indicate that quantitative methods make up the largest percentage of research methods published in forensic accounting journals.…”

“…Although there are prior reviews of the forensic accounting literature (Botes and Saadeh, 2018;Howieson, 2018;Huber and DiGabriele, 2015;Tiwari and Debnath, 2017), it is important to understand the factors that affect forensic accounting education and profession in both positive and negative ways. Forensic accounting literature is increased in the last few years (Honigsberg, 2020;Huber and DiGabriele, 2015;Ozili, 2020;Ramos et al, 2019).…”

“…Although there are prior reviews of the forensic accounting literature (Botes and Saadeh, 2018;Howieson, 2018;Huber and DiGabriele, 2015;Tiwari and Debnath, 2017), it is important to understand the factors that affect forensic accounting education and profession in both positive and negative ways. Forensic accounting literature is increased in the last few years (Honigsberg, 2020;Huber and DiGabriele, 2015;Ozili, 2020;Ramos et al, 2019). This increase has been driven by the important applications of forensic accounting for companies and their stakeholders (Sahdan et al, 2020;Yang and Lee, 2020), as well as the heightened anxiety about fraud against companies and societies (Abdullahi and Mansor, 2018;Allan et al, 2018;Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, 2016a, b, 2018Blythe and Goodpasture, 2019;Dennis and Johnstone, 2018;Honigsberg, 2020;€ Ozt€ urk and Usul, 2020;Ramos et al, 2019;Sadaf et al, 2018;Timofeyev and Jakovljevic, 2020).…”