Beyond brainstorming: The effectiveness of computer-mediated communication for convergence and negotiation tasks

Although a considerable body of research in information systems has established that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is beneficial for brainstorming (idea generation) tasks, less is known about its effectiveness for more complex decision-making tasks. This paper reports the results of two experiments comparing the performance of face-to-face and CMC teams in decision-making tasks that move beyond brainstorming. In the first experiment, the performance of face-to-face and computer-mediated teams was compared in two tasks: one requiring participants to engage in convergent thinking and a second brainstorming task requiring divergent thinking. Consistent with predictions derived from McGrath's task circumplex model, the results of experiment one reveal that participants using computer-mediated communication perform significantly better than those interacting face-to-face on the divergent (brainstorming) task. On the convergent task, computer-mediated and face-to-face teams performed equally well; i.e., there was not a significant difference in their performance. In the second experiment, the performance of face-to-face and computer-mediated teams was again compared in two tasks: an integrative negotiation task and an idea-generation task. The results of the second experiment were similar to those of experiment one, in that computer-mediated teams significantly outperformed face-to-face teams in the idea-generation task, while computer-mediated and face-to-face teams performed equally well on the integrative negotiation task. These experiments contribute to the literature by shedding additional light on the conditions under which computer-mediated communication is as effective as, and in some cases more effective than, face-to-face interaction.     

头脑风暴技术在舞弊审计中的应用

头脑风暴技术得到了审计职业界的重视,并将其作为一项重要的舞弊风险应对措施加以实施和推广2002年美国审计准则委员会(ASB)修订实施的审计准则(SAS No.99,109)要求审计项目组每次审计都必须执行头脑风暴项目组讨论会,针对客户财务报表可能存在的舞弊行为交换看法,准则制定者认为头脑风暴法作为一种改善审计人员舞弊判断质量的工具,有助于审计人员发现可能存在的舞弊行为。大量的国外审计实践和研究表明,头脑风暴技术在舞弊风险因素识别、舞弊风险评估和舞弊风险应对方面效果都优于审计人员个体判断和决策。     

Team discourse explains media richness and anonymity effects in audit fraud cue brainstorming

This article contributes by extending media richness (MRT) and media synchronicity theories (MST) to explore how media richness and anonymity influence team interactions and success in audit fraud brainstorming. Sixty-three, three-person teams, with 189 student participants from two Universities, identified fraud risk cues in a SAS 99 audit planning case. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: electronic anonymity (EA; n = 18 teams), electronic identified (EI; n = 28 teams), or identified face-to-face (FtF; n = 17 teams). Compared with teams in the low media richness conditions, i.e., the EA and EI, discussions in FtF teams produced more and better dialog, which resulted in better identification of fraud risk cues. Additionally, compared with the discussions in the EA teams, FtF team discussions evidenced less narcissism and were more focused and inhibited. Mediation analyses of team interactions indicated that the quantity of dialog (team production) completely explains, fully mediates, the effects of media richness and anonymity on risk assessments. Contributions include extending MRT and MST, and using automated content analysis, to explicate the role of media richness, anonymity, and team interactions in explaining audit team fraud identification success. The concluding section identifies the sample, design, and method limitations, and, discusses the potential for group support technologies to enhance or detract from audit team processes, depending on task, context, and technology.     

Health care fraud: a primer on the schemes and the tools to fight health care fraud

As the national debate over health care reform moves forward, one issue with which policy makers must grapple is the percentage of health care dollars lost to fraud and abuse. The General Accounting Office estimates that as much as ten percent of total health care dollars are lost to the inappropriate, and in some cases criminal, practices of health care providers. This article discusses the characteristics of the health care industry that make it particularly susceptible to abuse and then reviews the efforts by the Office of Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services, to deter and punish those who defraud the federal health care programs.     

The apparatus of fraud risk

‘Fraud risk’ is ontologically different from fraud. Fraud itself is a disruptive event; fraud risk can and must be governed. This essay draws on Foucault’s concept of an apparatus (dispositif) to explain the emergence of this difference. The analysis begins with a concrete case and explicates the history of fraud risk which flows through a specific organizational setting. First, it is claimed that fraud risk must be understood in relation to the broader historicity of risk in which risk expands its reach as an organizing practice category. Second, it is argued that the diverse elements of the fraud risk apparatus – words, laws, best practice guides, risk maps, websites, compliance officers, text books, regulatory judgments and many more – have a trajectory of formation. This trajectory begins with auditing and expands into risk management, regulation and security more generally. Fraud risk management emerges as a highly articulated, transnational web of ideas and procedures which frame the future within present organizational actions, and which intensify the responsibility of senior managers. Overall, the paper challenges the common sense idea that the present shape of fraud risk management is a functional necessity demanded by fraud events. The purpose is to display the historically contingent regime of truth for speaking about fraud, risk and responsibility in organizations. The paper suggests that this ‘regime of truth’ consists in a form of managerial and regulatory knowledge with a ‘grammar’ governing rules for talking about and acting on risky subjects and organizations. The rise of ‘fraud risk’ management and its prominent position within the field of corporate governance in the 21st century is emblematic of an ongoing neoliberal project of individualization and responsibilization.     

The future of financial fraud

Is financial fraud becoming a bigger or smaller problem over time? Current empirical approaches to this question generate mixed inferences. As an alternative, I use two theoretical constructs that isolate several factors that motivate fraud, and use them to consider the impact of technological and wealth changes over time. Some changes, such as an increase in anonymity in some financial transactions, facilitate new fraud innovations and increase the possibility of fraud. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic shutdown has fostered major disruptions in relative demands and organizational capital that also increase the likelihood of fraud over the next few years. Viewed over a longer time scale, however, the majority of technological and wealth changes seem likely to increase the use and effectiveness of reputational capital, third-party enforcement, and ethical motivations as fraud deterrents. I predict that, on net, these changes will drive a long-term decrease in the incidence of fraud.     

法国兴业银行欺诈案及其启示

2008年1月,法国兴业银行欺诈案给该行造成49亿欧元损失。事件起因于交易员热罗姆·盖维耶尔违规购入大量欧洲股指期货,他用伪造的投资组合来“对冲”真实投资组合中金融工具的风险。法国兴业银行是法国第二大银行和欧洲第四大金融集团,曾是金融衍生产品市场的领导者,但它的风控“天网”在盖维耶尔面前不堪一击。法兴银行平稳地渡过了这次难关,它的危机处理能力值得关注。法兴劫难的启示有：金融风险管理需要警钟长鸣;法兴劫难并不是一个孤立事件;不要迷信任何风险管理制度或系统;要从繁荣处找隐患。     

Internal audit reporting lines,fraud risk decomposition,and assessments of fraud risk

The main purpose of this research is to examine the effects of internal audit reporting lines on fraud risk assessments made by internal auditors when the level of fraud risk varies. Significant emphasis has been placed on the importance of reporting lines in maintaining the autonomy of internal auditors, but the perceived benefits of requiring internal audit to report directly to the audit committee have not been validated or systematically investigated. Results of an experiment involving 172 experienced internal auditors and additional survey findings indicate that internal auditors perceive more personal threats when they report high levels of risk directly to the audit committee, relative to management. Perceived threats lead internal auditors to reduce assessed levels of fraud risk when reporting to the audit committee relative to when reporting to management. This finding runs counter to the anticipated benefits of requirements that the internal audit function report directly to the audit committee, and it reveals potential conflicts of interest and independence threats created by the audit committee itself. We also investigate the effects of fraud risk decomposition on risk assessments made by internal auditors. We find that fraud risk assessment decomposition does not have the same effects on internal auditors as it has on external auditors, and the effects of decomposition do not align with the expected benefits of decomposition.     

The effects of experience and explicit fraud risk assessment in detecting fraud with analytical procedures

This paper reports the results of an experiment that examined the effects of audit experience and explicit fraud risk assessment instructions on the effectiveness of analytical procedures in detecting financial statement fraud. The results of this study suggest that audit managers are more effective than audit seniors in assessing the risk of fraud with analytical procedures. Additionally, explicit fraud risk assessment instructions resulted in more effective assessments of the presence of fraud. These results have implications for the assignment of auditors to tasks and the structuring of these tasks.     

Health care fraud control: understanding the challenge

The study summarized here examined the fraud-control apparatus currently used within the health care industry, and assessed the assumptions, policies, and systems that constitute the industry's current approaches to fraud control. The objective was to develop a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches. Since 1992, with Health Care Reform under debate, the issue of health care fraud has received unprecedented legislative and administrative attention. Nevertheless disturbing and somewhat surprising lapses in control persist. The fraud problem shows no sign of abatement. Background knowledge of the health care fraud issue was derived from literature searches and from four years of interaction with concerned public and private organizations. Fraud control systems, policies and procedures were examined in detail at eight field sites, representing a cross section of private, not-for-profit, and public programs. The National Institute of Justice funded the study under grant number #94-IJ-CX-K004. This study finds the science of fraud control scarcely developed and little understood by industry practitioners. Academia has paid little attention to the problem. Within the health care industry, the task of fraud control is complicated by the social acceptability of insurers as targets, the invisible nature of most fraud schemes, the separation between administrative budgets and "funds", the respectability of the health care profession, and the absence of clear distinctions between criminal fraud and other forms of abuse. Existing approaches to control are more effective in controlling billing errors, overutilization, medical unorthodoxy, and other forms of abuse than in dealing with criminal fraud. The complexity of the fraud control challenge is seriously underestimated by the health care industry Existing control systems are not targeted on criminal fraud and cannot be expected to control it. Scientific measurement of the fraud problem is a prerequisite effective control.     

信用卡欺诈风险状况探析

随着我国信用卡业务的迅速发展和竞争的日趋激烈,各种专业信用卡诈骗集团、代办公司和套现公司等不断涌现,我国信用卡欺诈风险已进入多发、高发时期.本文就我国信用卡欺诈风险状况进行较深入的分析,并提出一些应对措施.     

一起信用卡诈骗案件评析

案情简介1998年被告人陈某在明知自己无偿还能力的情况下,仍持其牡丹卡、太平洋卡先后在江苏省无锡市、常熟市、上海市、杭州市、深圳市和东莞市等地,采用小额取现、刷卡消费等手段,恶意透支190笔,共计透支数额181008.82元。张家港市人民检察院以被告人陈某犯信用卡诈骗罪,向张家港市人民法院提起     

警惕海外买壳上市骗局

目前,买壳上市呈现一种“多快好省”的大好局面,这里要提醒的是:海外买壳上市的确有着不为人所知的骗局。买壳上市到底成效如何?背后的陷阱是什么?本文将以赴美国上市为例,指出国内企业海外买壳上市的误区,揭开中介公司买壳上市的骗局,以期国内民营企业不再重蹈海外买壳上市之覆辙     

多哥诈骗案卷土重来的启示

最近,中国信保接到多家企业报案,称有多哥买家拖欠货款。经调查发现．该买家其实是以贸易为名实施诈骗。调查中．中国信保还发现,多哥诈骗案早在2010年就曾发生过,而且是多个。     

Teaching effectiveness of non-native English-speaking teachers in business disciplines: intercultural communication apprehension and ethnocentrism

Teaching effectiveness of non-native English-speaking teachers (NNEST) in accounting, economics and finance has become a significant issue due to the increasing trend of hiring NNEST in business schools. However, the literature has focused on the English language competence of NNEST, which is only one element of the factors that influence teaching effectiveness. This study examines students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness of NNEST in business disciplines in an Australian university to understand relevant NNEST issues of teaching from a cross-cultural communication perspective. Data were gathered via focus groups and student evaluation of teacher performance surveys. The thematic content analysis of the data indicated that students acknowledge that NNEST are knowledgeable and hardworking teachers; however, issues of intercultural communication apprehension hinder their teaching effectiveness. Besides, ethnocentric world views of students tend to adversely influence the teaching evaluation of NNEST. This study concludes that NNEST’s issues are broader than mere linguistic competence, which suggests that business schools should focus on enhancing cultural understanding and minimising intercultural communication apprehension of NNEST in efforts aimed at enhancing NNEST’s teaching effectiveness.     

固定资产清查也要防虚假

企业对固定资产全面清查常常每会计年度搞一次,由于它在企业经济业务量中所占比重少,容易被审计人员忽略.然而笔者在审计过程中发现,有些企业在固定资产清查中,利用虚假的盘盈、盘亏,达到操纵企业利润、转移国有资产的非法目的.     

Effects of the fraud triangle on students’ risk assessments

This study is motivated by Bailey’s [Bailey, C. D. (2004). An unusual cash control procedure. Journal of Accounting Education, 22, 119–129]. A disappointing 89% of Bailey’s 502 students appear to have overestimated the risk of an asset misappropriation. This study presents the results of two quasi-experiments that test whether students’ risk assessments are affected by the type of model presented to them immediately preceding their risk assessments. One group was provided an overview of the widely used Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO), Internal Control—Integrated Framework and the second group was provided a briefing on the Fraud Triangle, a model originally developed by criminologist, Donald R. Cressey (1973). As predicted, students who were provided an overview of the fraud triangle committed fewer Type I and Type II errors than students who were provided an overview of COSO. The results from this study contribute to the literature on risk assessment by demonstrating how the fraud triangle could, in some situations, lead to better risk assessments.     

中国防范银行卡欺诈的战役

银行卡欺诈是一个日益严重的世界性的问题.由于受到降低成本和确保最大投资回报的巨大压力,如何制定反欺诈策略是当今反欺诈部门的主管面临的一项特殊挑战.     

一宗电子邮件诈骗案引发的思考

外贸实务中,买卖双方相距甚远,电子邮件成为贸易过程中买卖双方沟通的重要工具。某些不法分子便利用进出口双方内部管理或信息沟通过程之中的漏洞,利用电子邮件信息传递的时滞,非法介入买卖双方的沟通过程,通过信息拦截与信息误导使信息传递失真,进而通过一系列操作达成其骗货敛财的目的。请看中国信保专家提供的案例分析。