David Lacey

Detecting complex account fraud in the enterprise: The role of technical and non-technical controls

Complex fraud, involving heightened offender knowledge of organizational processes, can be especially damaging to the firm. Much research has focused on technical, quantitative detection methods. This paper uses multidimensional scaling of empirical fraud event data from a large telecommunications firm to illustrate how technical and socio-technical fraud controls are used to detect fraud at varying levels of time exposure and dollar loss. The evidence suggests that technical controls only detect one third of fraud cases with zero time exposure and loss. More complex fraud is detected with a range of technical and socio-technical controls from inside and outside the firm. Interviews with twelve fraud managers and investigators are used to confirm the findings.

Developments in Public Sector Performance Measurement: A Project on Producing Return on Investment Metrics for Law Enforcement

This paper reports on a project concerned with developing a return on investment (ROI) performance metric for a law enforcement organisation. The papers contributions are twofold. First, it addresses concerns in the literature about how different stakeholder interests are balanced in the development of performance measures. Second, it helps to remedy an oversight in the literature regarding the hybridisation of accounting and economic expertise, whereby cost benefit techniques and ROI combine to produce a metric of public sector achievements. By virtue of its law enforcement context the paper also discusses a further hybridisation where accounting, economics and criminology/law enforcement intersect.

Beyond New Public Management: Does Performance Measurement Drive Public Value in Networks?

Abstract Purpose This article focuses on the role of accounting performance measurement in the creation of public value in the context of the network associated with the justice portfolio within the Australian Commonwealth. Design/methodology/approach We use concepts of bonding and bridging social capital to theorize the use of performance measurement in government networks. Findings We find that there is relatively little use of performance measures that reported network level performance and the primary emphasis was on building social capital with funders rather than across network partner agencies. We therefore conclude that existing Australian public sector performance measurement practices are not supportive of intra-governmental networks and therefore the notion that improvement in performance measurement will deliver public value needs further reflection. Research limitations/implications The research scope is restricted to governmental network performance measures from a justice portfolio budget perspective. Despite the focused attention of the research, the application of the findings has relevance across all government portfolios and broader public management more generally. Practical implications Despite calls for accountability and governance innovation where public value is delivered across organizational boundaries through dependency and collaboration, the case environment offers little evidence that forms of performance measurement over the period examined recognize this practicality. The research primarily adds considerable weight to the argument that the delivery of public value by networks requires an evolution in accountability and performance reporting away from traditional institutional forms of performance representation. Originality/value The research is highly novel in its unveiling and examination of contemporary performance measurement reporting from a network perspective.

Revisiting employee fraud: gender, investigation outcomes and offender motivation

Purpose – This paper aims to present the findings of a study examining fraud in the workplace setting, principally in the Australasian context. Although prior research into occupational fraud is conceptually rich, there is a lack of empirical evidence of this important but elusive problem. Design/methodology/approach – Based on investigative data from 14 participating firms, the paper provides insights into the gender breakdowns and stated motivations of offenders. The paper also provides evidence of the number of investigations, interviews and reports to law enforcement in these firms. Findings – The study finds that genders are evenly balanced for most firms, with females significantly outnumbering males in banking firms. Self-imposed financial hardship was the most popular motivator. Of the number of admissions to wrongdoing, only half were subsequently reported to law enforcement. Research limitations/implications – Particularly complex or advanced types of occupational fraud may go unreported or unde...