Hogan, C.E., Z. Rezaee, R.A. Riley Jr., and U.K. Velury (2008). Financial Statement Fraud: Insights from the Academic Literature. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 27 (2): 231-252.
1. There is a significant amount of literature on the characteristics of fraud firms, providing support for the fraud triangle classifications and the list of “red flags” used in both SAS No. 82 and SAS No. 99. a. Pressures to meet analysts’ forecasts, rapid growth, compensation incentives, stock options, the need for financing, and poor performance increase the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting. b. Effective corporate governance, including the board of directors, audit committee, and internal controls, and also the external auditor, play key roles in reducing the opportunity to commit fraud. c. Research is limited in the attitudes and rationalizations area. Based on the research, the focus areas of SAS No. 99 incentives, opportunity, and rationalization are grounded in empirical evidence. In that regard, the efforts of the profession to emphasize management override are warranted.
2. Evidence on the usefulness of checklists as a fraud detection tool is mixed. While there is some research that supports the use of checklists as a decision tool, there is more evidence that suggests the use of checklists is dysfunctional in that auditors fail to expand their thinking beyond the checklist. 3. Research supports a need by auditors to align management incentives to the types of risks that should be evaluated as high i.e., high incentives to manage earnings upwards as a result of a need for capital versus incentives to manage earnings downward and establish cookie jar reserves .
4. There is evidence that suggests auditors do not make significant adjustments to audit plans as a result of higher fraud risk assessments.
5. Research supports further exploration into the use of