International Journal of Critical Accounting (4 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Employees fraudulent behaviour: a social cognitive analysis  
  by Michalis Bekiaris, Georgios Papachristou 
  Abstract: This study empirically examines the effects of personal attributes and organisational conditions on employees propensity to commit or engage in fraudulent acts. Based on social cognitive theory and prior research, hypotheses were developed and then tested using survey data collected from 214 employees of private firms in Greece. After analysing the influence of big five personality traits and demographic characteristics on employees fraudulent behaviour in the workplace, the results indicate that conscientiousness and openness to experience have a significant negative impact on fraud intention. Gender is found to influence fraud propensity, as women are less eager to defraud. Ethical culture is also found to be negatively related to employees' fraud tendency. Further, a moderating effect of organisational context on the relationship between personality traits and fraud propensity is found to be related solely to openness to experience. The theoretical and practical implications for accounting and human resource management are discussed.
  Keywords: personal attributes; ethical culture; social cognitive theory; SCT; fraud propensity; big five personality traits.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2021.10039860
   
  
• How steel industry has been affected due to trade war between the USA and China  
  by Fakhrul Hasan, Md Rahat Hossen, Ahmed Ashfaque Shahbaz 
  Abstract: This research paper mainly focuses on how the US and Chinese steel industry has been affected by the trade war between the USA and China. One of the main election manifestos of Donald Trump was to reduce and eventually stop the steel import from China - the argument behind the manifesto was that China dumps their cheap steel in the USA, resulting in the US steel industry to suffer. The implementation of the manifesto caused a significant number of relevant business organisations to shut down along with a significant number of US labourers to lose their jobs. As we use data from 2013 to 2019, we find that the US steel imports from China started to decline when Trump took the helm. The import decline continued until the end of 2019. As a result of the import decline, China also reacted strongly and reduced steel imports from the USA. Therefore, this trade war has had a direct impact on US steel exports, and the country has lost a substantial amount of their export revenue.
  Keywords: the USA; China; steel; export; import.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2021.10040924
   
  
• Factors affecting the quality of internal audit as a competitive advantage of the firms  
  by Christos Orliaklis, Christos Konstantinidis, George Drogalas, Michail Pazarskis 
  Abstract: The internal audit of the organisations constitutes a valuable tool for the management as well as a legal obligation for the registered companies in Greece. The main role of the internal audit is the reassurance of the assets of the firms and the added value that brings up, allowing their viability and their lifelong prosperity. Thus, the present study attempts to investigate the factors that affect the internal audit quality and the competitive advantages these might infer to the firms, via a questionnaire completed by 67 internal auditors. Multiple regression analysis examined the association between the quality of internal audit and the following principal factors. The results revealed the scale that the internal audit quality is influenced by: 1) the effectiveness of the internal audit function; 2) the competence of internal auditors; 3) the objectivity of the internal audit departments; 4) the managerial skills of the chief internal auditors; 5) the work load and job satisfaction; 6) the technological environment.
  Keywords: factors of internal audit quality; internal audit quality; internal audit; audit quality; competitive advantage; chief internal auditor.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2021.10040741
   
  
• Incorporating financial ratios in DEA - an application to goat farming data. A critical examination  
  by Maria Tsiouni, Alexandra Pavloudi, Stamatis Aggelopoulos, Christos Konstantinidis 
  Abstract: Goat farming in Greece, is practiced in disadvantaged regions that cannot be otherwise valorised. For these areas, goat farming is one of the main economics activities. Despite the significance of the sector, goat farming shows low efficiency and competitiveness and this is due to the high production costs. Most farms in Greece operate under increasing scale. The goal of this paper is to present how corporate performance can be measured - using DEA method - with financial indexes. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a useful technique that measures the efficiency. However, the lack of the ability to attend to ratio measures is an ongoing challenge in DEA. In this paper there is a combination of DEA and financial ratios and that has many advantages. It is implemented a specific procedure that called directional distance function and the main advantage of this method, belonging to the class of non-radial approach, is the flexibility.
  Keywords: data envelopment analysis; DEA; financial ratios; directional distance function; goat farming.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2021.10040742