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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.

The traditional interpretation of corporate finance is characterized by ownership. Although, their rights are widely distributed among individual stockholders, but can be managed by few managers. Hence, conflict of interest is arisen among managers and shareholders and this results in an agency problem (Fama, 1980; Fama & Jensen, 1983). A number of empirical studies also confirmed the ownership concentration of firms, especially those dominated by few large owners or block-holders (La Porta et al., 1999). The concentrated structure of ownership also contributes towards agency conflict between block-holders and minority shareholders. From another perspective, the block-holders can benefit minority shareholders by their role in monitoring managers and also can be hazardous if they strive to achieve their own private goals (Shleifer & Vishny, 1997).

The internal dimension of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to the socially responsible behavior of an organization towards its employees. The CSR relationship to employee behavior has received some attention but in general, there is little knowledge about the underlying explanatory mechanisms that can describe this relationship. In this study, a theoretical model of mediation and moderation is developed to explain how CSR can influence employee behavior. Organizational identification and work engagement are used as proxies for employee behavior in the model and internal dimension of CSR is assumed to affect both of them positively. Further, it is proposed that CSR influences the organizational identification positively and this relationship will be stronger in a collectivist culture, which will eventually lead to higher work engagement. A proposed model was tested on a sample of bank employees in Pakistan by using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. The results of this study provide contextual and empirical insights into how CSR influences employee behavior.

This article examines how worldwide governance, global competiveness, and other institutional determinants have influenced the number of accounting fraud cases in several countries. The researchers have focused more closely on the importance of ‘good governance’ as one of the indicators of development objectives in itself. The institutional perspective is employed to explain the complexity of frauds in different societies which can be compatible for the purposes of international judgments in order to increase the effectiveness of previous forensic accounting theories. In this paper, a linear regression model is tested where governance, competitiveness, and other institutional variables are associated with a measure of accounting fraud cases. From our results, we can merely claim that an increased level of controlled corruption and political stability might reduce the number of fraud cases in various countries, while more effective and independent governance services with a higher freedom of expression seemed to increase them. The existence of accounting crimes also appeared to be a suitable proxy of better competitiveness. Anglo-Saxon countries have more stated fraud cases than other countries, attributed, perhaps, to the finest commercial courts with the most professional and least corrupt judges in the world, with centuries of precedent cases and experience in dealing with fraud. Moreover, we believe that a better understanding of fraud detection is a potentially important element in forensic accounting analytics in the success of governance policies to enhance development and reduce the risk of bankruptcies related to the reported fraud cases of enterprises.

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