Personal Characteristics and Fraudulent Behaviour

Despite years of study into fraudulent behaviour, the fraudster's profile offered to date has been limited in nature. It usually includes sweeping generalisations of age, gender, years of experience and some form of motivation usually driven by greed. However, this says very little about actual individuals themselves. At the centre of this thesis is the premise that the individual holds the key to decision-making, and that decision-making results in a choice, and that that choice could involve an unfair gain, thereby resulting in fraudulent behaviour. Fraud, and the reasons why people commit it, has been mostly looked at from the perspective of employer's conduct in not detecting fraudulent behaviour. The personalities of individual employees have been largely ignored. A comprehensive profile is vital to gain an understanding into the individual who commits fraud. Using scenarios involving accounting fraud this study thus examined personal characteristics including personality, and thereby attempts to provide an understanding of those who may engage in fraudulent behaviour.