The effects of accountability, governance capital, and legal origin on reported frauds

Abstract

An institutional perspective is employed to illuminate the complexity of frauds in various diverse economies, in order to enhance the efficacy of previous accounting concepts. In this study, the effects of the legal, regulatory and human framework of the strength of auditing and reporting standards, and the governance capital related to global sustainable competitiveness and economic growth, etc. are analysed by linear regression (OLS) methods. Moreover, the role of other indicators i.e. financial freedom, the extent of director liability and legal origin, are interrelated with the number of fraud cases. From the results, it appears that an increased level of governance capital, financial freedom from government pressure, strengthened transparency and more protected minority investors through liable directors might increase the number of reported fraud cases in the countries and years examined. The existence of legal origin also seemed to be an appropriate proxy for an improved understanding of fraud characteristics. This evidence suggests it is worth investigating in depth the nature of financial crimes across countries for a better understanding of this phenomenon. In this way, these findings might have sufficient potential in the case of adequate policy implications within a less litigious business environment to resolve the undesirable consequences of impending financial downturns, and to achieve sustainable competitiveness and economic development.

Keywords

• sustainable governance capital
• private institutions
• legal origin
• fraud
• cross-country analysis
• accountability