Firm characteristics and accounting fraud : a multivariate approach

Abstract

The accounting frauds have massive adverse impacts on the business environment. Due to high incidence of accounting fraud in the economic environment, regulatory bodies make considerable efforts to the development of a reliable and accurate model that can detect accounting fraud. The primary objective of this paper is to establish an empirical model that significantly contributes to the development of a reliable model for detecting accounting fraud committed by firms listed on Borsa İstanbul. This study investigates ten accounting variables with probit regression analysis and covers 144 firms between the time period of 2005 to 2015. The results indicate that firms with low liquidity ratios are more probable to issue fraudulent financial statements, negative financial performance is a vital motivational factor for fraud, smaller firms are more likely to issue fraudulent financial statements, firms with high debt to equity are more likely to be classified as fraud firms and fraud firms have lower accounts receivable turnover and inventory turnover than non-fraud firms.