MEASURES TO PREVENT LISTED FIRMS FROM BEING EMPTIED: THE CASE OF TAIWAN

Purpose- Enterprises are major elements of the national economy that provide employment opportunities and innovative products that improve quality of life. They also pay tax to promote national construction. Therefore, the legal operation of enterprises gives stability to a society.  However, due to various reasons, domestic and global fraud occurs and emptying a company does most harm. Emptying means depleting a company’s assets by illicit means.Methodology- Previous studies on this issue focus mainly on one facet of the problem, such as a company’s legal responsibility, the financial consequences, the strengthening of governance, the deployment of ethics or information transparency.  Very few studies examine measures to prevent listed companies from being emptied from the perspective of regulation, control and autonomy.  This study uses a Modified Delphi Method and 30 experts to extract a consensus of measures to avoid fraud, in terms of government regulation, accountant validation and enterprise autonomy. The method uses three rounds and the results show that the most effective means is for government to establish a law that forces criminals to give back the spoils and for enterprise to regularly receive training of board members on governance. The second effective means is to establish a law that provides reward and protection for informants and for enterprises to disclose the salaries of board members. The third effective means is for government to establish an institution that is responsible for fraud, to require company transparency and to require accountants to use combined financial reports for mutual investment to discover fake investments.Findings- Careful examination of the top three effective measures shows that even though some of the methods are related to accountant validation and enterprise autonomy, their complete execution must rely on legislation.  Therefore, it is clear that government regulation is the key to avoiding fraud.Conclusion- Active regulation by the government is more effective than passive autonomy in enterprises. This conclusion is the result of deliberations by an expert panel that was composed of senior management, prosecutors and judges and accountants, so it is a company basis for legislative action.

___

  • Adolf A. Berle, Jr. & Gardiner C. Means, (1932). The modern corporation and private property. New York: The Macmillan Company.
  • Bowen, H. R. (1953). Social responsibility of the businessman, New York: Harper & Row.
  • Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate social performance. Academy of Management Review, vol. 4, no. 4, pp.497-505.
  • Cohen, J. Ding, Y. Lesage, C. & Stolowy, H. (2010). Corporate fraud and managers’ behavior: evidence from the press. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 95, pp.271–315.
  • Cochran, P & Wartick, S. (1988). Corporate governance: a review of the literature. Financial Executives Research Foundation, Morristown, New Jersey.
  • Dalkey & Helmer, (1962). An experimental application of the delphi method to the use of experts, United States Air Force Project Rand.
  • Dalkey, N. C. (1969). The Delphi method: An experimental study of group opinion, Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.
  • Delbecq, A. L., Van de Ven, A. H., & Gustafson, D. H. (1975). Group techniques for program planning: A guide to nominal group and Delphi processes, Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman.
  • Enofe, A. O., Omagbon, P. & Ehigiator, F. I. (2015). Forensic audit and corporate fraud. International Journal of Economics and Business Management, vol. 1, no.7, pp.1-10.
  • Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, (2002). Business ethics: ethical decision making & cases, 8th Edition, South-Western, Cengage Learning.
  • Fleming, A. S., Hermanson, D. R., Kranacher, M. J. & Riley, R. A. (2016). Financial reporting fraud: public and private companies. Journal of Forensic Accounting Research. vol. 1, no. 1, pp. A27-A41.
  • Hill, K. Q. & J. Fowles, (1975). The methodological worth of the delphi forecasting technique, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol.7, pp.179-192.
  • Jensen & Meckling, (1976). Theory of the firm: managerial behavior, bgency costs and ownership structure, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  • OECD, (2016). G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance.
  • Romney, M. B., Albrecht, W. S. & Cherrington, D.J. (1980). Red-flagging the white collar criminal. Management Accounting, May, pp.51-57.
  • Rezaee, Z. (2002). Financial statement fraud: prevention and detection, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  • Rommey, M. B., Albrecht, W. S. & Cherrington, D. J. (1980). Auditors and the detection of fraud. Journal of Accountancy, vol. 49, no. 5, pp.63-69.
  • Shleifer & Vishny, (1997). A survey of corporate governance. The Journal of Finance, vol. LII, no. 2, pp.737-783.
  • Steiner, G. A. & Steiner, J. F. (1980). Business, government and society: a management perspective. New York: Random House.
  • Wolfe, D. T & Hermanson, D. R. (2004). The fraud diamond: considering the four elements of fraud. The CPA Journal, vol. 74, no. 12, pp.38-45.
  • Zkul, F. U. & Pamukc, A. (2012). Fraud detection and forensic accounting. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg.