Current Areas of Research
- 2006 KPMG Fraud Survey
Along with KPMG and the University of Melbourne, The Centre for Business Forensics is involved in the develop and distribution of the 2006 KPMG Fraud Survey. The information collected is providing a platform for research in areas associated with fraudulent activities such as corporate governance and fraud detection methods. Research findings from the Fraud Survey will be posted on the web progressively as they become available.
- Anti-Money Laundering
The Centre has been awarded a ARC First Linkage Fund for the project entitled: Anti-Money Laundering guidelines for impacted companies and compliance officers within Australia: An empirical study of risk-based vs function-based approach. With the release of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2005, in Australia, issues arise in how to implement the legislation into industry and how the regulatory body should pursue compliance with those guidelines. This project aims to develop and understand the processes needed for successful anti-money laundering guidelines. Through benchmarking Australia's emerging practice against either the risk-based or function-based approach taken by other regulators internationally, our industry partners can position themselves as 'best practice' leaders globally.
- ARC Linkage Grant - UQ Business School/KPMG
As previously mentioned in the newsletter, the Centre applied for an ARC grant for the project titled "Modelling the relations between the incidence of within-firm corporate fraud and the quality of corporate governance structures" in mid-April last year. We are pleased to announce, the application was successful and funding of $250,000 will commence in 2004 and continue for 3 years.
This grant is significant to today's society, as organizations operating in market economies have agency problems because the managers of the firm are rarely the owners. One costly outcome is the incidence of fraud within organizations. In recent times organizations have developed and refined corporate governance structures.
To date there has been little analysis of the effect that corporate governance has on the incidence of with-in firm fraud. The aim of this research is to build and test a model of the relations between with-in firm fraud and corporate governance systems that can be used as a diagnostic tool by industry to monitor and manage risk.
The Chief Investigators on the project are Professor Colin Ferguson, Professor Peter Clarkson, Professor Allen Craswell, Dr Peter Green, and Dr Larelle Chapple.
