The accountant, fear and fraud: an analysis in the light of emotions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8069.2022.e83221Keywords:
Emotions, Fear, Fraud, Whistleblowing, Plea bargainAbstract
In order to investigate whether there is a relationship between the emotion 'fear' and the individual's willingness to participate and report accounting fraud, the ‘fear’ was observed, as primary negative emotion, and organizational ‘social fears’, in 332 subjects, exposed to 3 scenarios: participation in fraud; whistleblowing (without participation in fraud or favouring) and plea bargain (with participation in the fraud and the benefit of reducing penalties). The results reveal that the willingness to participate in the fraud is positively related to the social fears of the 'hierarchy' and 'of losing economic benefits in the organization' and, negatively, to the fears 'of the penal rule' and of 'jeopardizing reputation in the market'; for whistleblowing, there are the fears of ‘being disloyal to the company’ and ‘disapproval from family and friends’ and concerning plea bargain, the fears ‘of risking the reputation in the market’ (promotes complaint) and ‘disapproval by colleagues’ (inhibits complaint).
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