Nadia Smaili

• University of Quebec in Montreal

Purpose The aim of this study is to examine the patterns of fraud present in Valeant’s 2014 and 2015 financial statements and determine through a risk management analysis whether these frauds could have been prevented. This analysis provides the opportunity to more effectively prevent financial statement fraud. Design/methodology/approach Data wer...

Whistleblowing is the most effective way to unveil wrongdoings. Indeed, whistleblowers often protect their organizations by providing crucial information. While existing research about whistleblowing focuses on the intentions of whistleblowers to report a wrongdoing after a wrongdoing is observed, we seek to understand how individuals view whistleb...

The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of two CEO characteristics, gender diversity and narcissism, on disclosure quality through an examination of the joint effect of gender diversity in management and CEO narcissism. Based on 452 shareholder letters (CEO letters in the annual report) issued by French firms, our results suggest that...

Purpose For more than four decades, scholars from diverse disciplines and countries have been interested in the act of whistleblowing. To battle financial fraud, financial regulators have been developing whistleblowing programs to motivate and protect whistleblowers, i.e. those who sound the alarm after witnessing an illegal act in their organizati...

The growing interest on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development follows the shift of the focus from the shareholder-oriented and formerly dominant agency theory perspective to a more holistic and long-term view from the stakeholder perspective (Bendickson et al. 2016). Corporate governance establishes mechanisms to mitigat...

Firms face increasing pressure to provide comprehensible organizational reports. The CEO annual letter to shareholders (CEO letter) is an important communication medium (Craig and Amernic in J Bus Ethics 101:563–575, 2011) and the most widely read section of the annual report (Courtis, 1982; Hyland, 1998). In this study, we investigate whether CEO...

This study explores how key organizational and governance actors perceive the effectiveness of whistleblowing at nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and how whistleblowing is interrelated with other anti‐fraud mechanisms. Using a systems approach, we develop a conceptual framework of anti‐fraud mechanisms consisting of a set of interrelated components:...

Many face-to-face accounting classes were canceled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were subsequently delivered exclusively in an online and distance learning format. This paper investigates the impact of this migration on accounting students’ engagement and satisfaction in the early stages of the pandemic. A survey was administered to all...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on white-collar crime that combines the perspectives of criminology and management sciences research. Design/methodology/approach Based on a systematic review of white-collar crime recidivism, this paper defines crime and the white-collar criminal from a different perspecti...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to discuss the harmful use of deepfakes in an organizational context, based on the only two cases the authors found that were addressed by the media from the perspective of corporate fraud. This study offers an overview of deepfake technology, and in particular, examines five W questions to better decipher the i...

Increasingly organizations have dedicated systems and personnel (recipients) to receive and handle internal whistleblower reports. Yet, the complexity of handling whistleblower reports is often underestimated, and there is a dearth of literature that attempts to describe or analyse the challenges internal recipients face. This paper uses an agency...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the risks of the metaverse ecosystem. This study provides an overview of the metaverse and its evolution and discusses the various fraud risks it poses for organizations (including boards of directors, forensic accountants, auditors and accountants). Given the advantages of the metaverse and the growi...

This study explores the impact of board effectiveness on cybersecurity-related disclosure. Based on a sample of 300 firm-years consisting of the largest Canadian listed companies over a period of five years, we find evidence that board effectiveness positively affects a firm’s decision to disclose cybersecurity information, and board independence a...

This study explores the impact of board effectiveness on cybersecurity-related disclosure. Based on a sample of 300 firm-years consisting of the largest Canadian listed companies over a period of five years, we find evidence that board effectiveness positively affects a firm’s decision to disclose cybersecurity information, and board independence a...

Cyber risk has become one of the greatest threats to firms in recent years. Accordingly, boards of directors must be continually vigilant about this danger. They have a duty to ensure that the companies adopt appropriate cybersecurity measures to manage the risk of cyber fraud. Boards should also ensure that the firm disclose material cyber risk an...

The initial online publication incorrectly contained Supplementary Information.

Purpose This study investigates the relation between the board of directors' attributes and corporate social performance. The authors examine three board of directors: characteristics, size, independence and gender diversity, and how they interact with industry to affect corporate social performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a m...

Purpose This paper draws on prior studies on the readability of corporate financial disclosures to discuss why readability should be a concern for firms. Guidance and recommendations are offered to help firms improve their financial disclosures. Design/methodology/approach The authors base their analysis on the management and accounting literature...

This study investigates the relationship between a firm’s annual report readability and its probability of bankruptcy. Findings show that firms with a larger 10-K file size have a higher probability of bankruptcy. More specifically, we suggest that there is a curvilinear relationship between annual report readability and bankruptcy probability. How...

Purpose This paper aims to discuss the importance of an effective internal whistleblowing system in building a more ethical organizational climate. Design/methodology/approach This study draws on the literature to make recommendations for organizations, managers and boards of directors regarding implementing an effective whistleblowing process. F...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether large blockholders are associated with financial statement fraud at their companies. Although a substantial body of prior studies has focused on chief executive officers’ motivations to manipulate financial statements, the correlation between majority shareholders and financial statement f...

Corporate governance guidelines recommend, and regulations in Canada and the US require that audit committees be actively involved in the whistleblowing process. Recognizing the lack of research based on direct evidence on the role of audit committees in the whistleblowing process and responding to calls for research on audit committees using diffe...

Understanding corporate disclosures is important for accounting researchers as information plays a central role on financial markets. A generation of accounting and finance researchers have shown how readability of different financial and nonfinancial disclosures affects our understanding of organizational behaviors. We review 138 papers from 1950...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a change of corporate governance occurs after financial crimes in Canada revealed through external whistleblowing. Design/methodology/approach Based on the methodology of Smaili and Arroyo (2019), the authors implement a qualitative research framework to examine 11 alleged Canadian corpor...

This study examines how the CSR committee and CSR-linked executive compensation jointly affect CSR performance as governance mechanisms. Prior studies provided mixed results on the CSR committee’s effect on CSR performance. We posit that a CSR committee has both a direct and an indirect positive effect on CSR performance, with CSR-linked compensati...

Based on stakeholder theory and considering the conflicting performance interests of a wide range of stakeholders, this research investigates corporate performance patterns using a cluster analysis of financial, social, and environmental performance dimensions. An analysis of a Canadian sample of 771 company‐year observations for the period 2014–20...

The numerous scandals attributed to lack of independence on the part of Big 4 auditors have reignited one of the most controversial issues in the accounting profession: Do Big 4 auditors provide higher audit quality? The objective of this paper is to examine whether the auditor's reputation affects non-compliance with disclosure obligations and the...

In view of recent studies that identified certain interest groups as potential whistleblowers, we propose an integrative conceptual framework to examine whistleblower behavior by whistleblower type. The framework, dubbed the whistleblowing triangle, is modeled on the fraud triangle and is comprised of three factors that condition the act of whistle...

This study examines the extent to which corporate governance acts as an efficient means of protecting investors against accounting irregularities. It is grounded in the literatures on public enforcement of securities laws by market authorities, governance, and fraudulent financial statements. A unique feature of the Canadian tracking and enforcemen...

This paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and executive compensation disclosure quality. We test whether socially responsible firms disclose more transparent and detailed information about their executive compensation packages than firms that are less committed to social responsibility initiatives. Using a sample...

The objective of this paper is to examine the joint effect of the board of directors and the auditor on the severity of sanctions imposed by the financial authority. Based on a theoretical model and using a unique dataset, we find that the board of directors and its audit committee play a crucial role when a firm faces financial authority sanctions...

This paper surveys state of the art literature on corporate fraud with an emphasis on the theoretical and empirical contributions developed in recent academic research. It highlights the evolution of fraud theories and describes corporate fraud determinants, detection and prevention tools.

L'objectif de cet article est de presenter une revue de la litterature sur le concept de fraude, en insistant notamment sur les apports theoriques et empiriques developpes dans la litterature recente. Nous mettons ainsi en evidence l'evolution de la theorie sur la fraude, sur ses determinants, sur les moyens pour la detecter et pour lutter contre c...

Recent accounting scandals raise questions about the role of corporate governance in fostering good financial reporting. Regulators have responded with governance reforms attempting to enhance the role of independent directors. Academic research has indeed extensively studied the relationship between the latter and financial reporting. On the other...

Accounting irregularities : determinants and consequences Given the existence of a relative ambiguity in the definition of several concepts related to accounting irregularities, this article proposes a synthesis based on the agency theory and on the literature on the determinants and consequences of accounting irregularities. We also examine the de...

Following financial scandals, the effectiveness of financial authorities in monitoring corporate disclosure and detecting accounting irregularities and fraud is regularly challenged. The Canadian securities administrators and the Ontario Securities Commission have responded notably with the publication of a Reporting issuers in default list commonl...

This study examines the extent to which corporate governance acts as an efficient means of protecting investors against accounting irregularities, thus contributing to the literatures on governance, on fraudulent financial statements and on the public enforcement of securities laws by market authorities. It does so by empirically testing the predic...

We presented a report of infrequent surgical pathology and description of clinical case seen in the service of mammary pathology of the Oncologic Hospital "Padre Machado" Caracas, Venezuela. The case of a feminine patient of 41 years is described to which we are made to him the diagnose of metaplasic carcinoma of left breast PTXNOMO, subsequent to...

Dans la mesure où il existe une certaine ambiguïté dans la définition de plusieurs concepts relevant de ce que nous appelons l’information non conforme à la loi et aux normes, cet article propose une synthèse générale, fondée sur la théorie de l’agence et établie à partir des littératures française et nord-américaine, sur les déterminants et les co...

La présente étude a pour objet de mieux comprendre le recours en levée du voile corporatif par l’analyse des décisions rendues par les tribunaux relativement à l’article 317 du Code civil du Québec sur une période de dix ans, soit de 1994 à 2004. Cette étude prend la forme non seulement d’une analyse exégétique des décisions, mais également d’une a...