Factors Engendering Corporate Fraud and Mechanisms for Enhancing the Detection and Prevention of Fraudulent Financial Practices in the UK Retail Industry

This thesis aims to explore the factors determining fraud in retail companies in the UK and the mechanisms that can be used to improve fraud detection and fraud prevention. The conceptual framework of the study is based predominantly on the Fraud Triangle Theory. This theory helps to explain the behavioural factors behind fraud and why instances of fraud take place. The aim and objectives of this thesis are attained using a mixed-methods research design based on primary data analysis. The primary data is collected by means of structured questionnaires and interviews over skype. The questions in the survey are coded using the Likert scale and analysed in SPSS. The main methods of analysis implemented in this study include frequency tables, descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, Cronbach’s alpha, logistic regression modelling and structural equation modelling (SEM). Interview questions are interpreted using a qualitative thematic analysis. The final sample of respondents represented 106 managers and employees from UK retail companies. The companies are taken from both the traditional sector and e-commerce. These 106 responses were collected from October 2019, when the first pilot study was arranged, to January 2021. The results demonstrate that the necessity for managers to sign an anti-fraud statement, the perceived higher quality of external audit, and the existence of an anonymous hotline for reporting fraudulent activities have a significant impact on the probability of fraud occurrence. The probability of fraud occurrence is also found to be correlated with the size of the company, which is consistent with the Opportunity dimension of the Fraud Triangle. It has also been revealed that monetary rewards for anonymous reporting of fraud produced a positive impact on fraud detection in UK retail companies. The main theoretical contribution of this study is that it has proposed a new scale for measuring the three constructs of the Fraud Triangle and tested this scale in the context of the UK retail industry. The main empirical contribution is that the factors of fraud detection and prevention have been demonstrated not only for publicly listed companies often studied in the past but also in the context of small private firms, for which the secondary data was not available and primary data was collected. The main methodological contribution of this thesis is that it combines quantitative techniques such as SEM and regression analysis with qualitative thematic analysis to examine the relationships between the constructs of the Fraud Triangle and the fraud occurrence on a deeper level

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC