Traits, Skills and Ethical Values of Public Sector Forensic Accountants: An Empirical Investigation

The role of accounting literature and professional training in enhancing common life-based characteristics held by a forensic accountant (an empirical investigation)

“…This emphasis is attributed to the importance of forensic accounting and based on many indications such as recognising it as a discipline (Mitric et al, 2012;Salleh and Ab Aziz, 2014) or a sub-discipline (Stone and Miller, 2012), giving it the status of a profession (Renzhoua, 2011;Huber, 2012;Dutta, 2013;Huber and DiGabriele, 2014), calls for regulating its activities (Huber, 2013), its role in crime discovery and prevention in the business world (Lokanan, 2014;Samuel et al, 2013;Reddy and Sebastin, 2012;Clements and Shawver, 2011;Carnes and Gierlasinski, 2001;Dutta, 2013), its ability in restoring confidence and credibility in financial reporting activities and accordingly enhancing the effectiveness of corporate governance (Bhasin, 2013), higher education involvement through either offering degrees in forensic accounting (e.g., Caliyurt and Crowther, 2006;Welsh and Hannis, 2011;Seda and Kramer, 2009) or just some courses on forensic accounting (e.g., Rezaee and Burton, 1997), and its role in injecting more forensic skills in auditing through, for example, a merger of what could be regarded as common ground between auditing with forensic accounting (DiGabriele, 2009). …”

“…Although Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014) give attention to the ethical dimension through supposedly pure religious-based characteristics, the synonymity issue is almost strongly adhered to. Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014) try to tackle in a questionnaire study four groups of traits, skills and ethical values required to be adhered to by a forensic accountant in the public sector.…”

“…Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014) try to tackle in a questionnaire study four groups of traits, skills and ethical values required to be adhered to by a forensic accountant in the public sector. There are at least three problems in the above grouping of traits, skills and ethical values.…”

“…Van Akkeren et al (2013), apparently with less attention, choose only one ethical value (i.e., integrity) within a group of 12 personal attributes. Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014), apparently with more attention, accept a group of five ethical values as the most important based on their system of rating. However, Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014) give a priority to technical requirements over the ethical requirements.…”

“…Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014), apparently with more attention, accept a group of five ethical values as the most important based on their system of rating. However, Salleh and Ab Aziz (2014) give a priority to technical requirements over the ethical requirements. In addition, their five ethical values rated by them as the most important are not well structured.…”