THE ROLE OF THE FRAUD TRIANGLE IN FINANCIAL REPORTING FRAUD: AN EXTENSIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Fraudulent financial reporting poses a significant threat to the integrity of the trust of stakeholders in businesses and the fraud triangle highlights key elements that contributes to the occurrence of fraud in a firm. This paper reviews extant literature on fraud triangle and fraudulent financial reportsof firms. Findings showed that fraud is a multifaceted phenomenon, whose contextual factors may not fit into a particular framework. Consequently, the fraud triangle should not be seen as a sufficiently reliable model for antifraud professionals. The paper therefore recommends that a study to identify a fraud mechanism to detect and predict fraud in financial statements be carried out.