Examination of accounting professionals' perceptions regarding accounting culture and financial statement fraud: The case of Istanbul

The aim of the study is to examine the perceptions of accounting professionals (Certified Accountant, Certified Public Accountant, Sworn-in Certified Public Accountant) towards accounting culture and fraudulent financial reporting (FFR). It was investigated whether there is a significant relationship between accounting professionals' perceptions of accounting culture and FFR, and whether these perceptions differ according to demographic characteristics. Methodologically; the universe of the study is professional accountants operating in Istanbul. In the study, a selected sample of 214 volunteers was used. The Accounting Culture Scale developed by Chanchani&Willet (2004) and the FFR questionnaire developed by Khaligova (2019) and Kutlu (2020) were used with the quantitative survey method. The Accounting Culture Scale included 16 statements and 4 sub-dimensions, while the FFR survey included 16 statements. Data were collected by online survey method and analyzed with SPSS-v22. In the analysis, general/specific tests and analyzes (Kruskal Wallis-H, Mann Whitney-U, Independent Groups T, Cronbach Alpha, Pearson Correlation etc.) were performed. In conclusion; it was revealed that there is a significant relationship between the perceptions of accounting professionals towards accounting culture and their perceptions of FFR. It was also found that these perceptions differ according to demographic characteristics. Perceptions of "The Flexibility of Accounting Culture Against Uniformity" and "Status Quota Against Professionalism" vary according to the gender of the members. On the other hand, it was indicated that other demographic characteristics are not effective on the professional accountants's accounting culture perceptions. Conversely, it was observed that the professionals's perceptions regarding FFR differ according to gender, age, years of service and title. However, it does not differ according to the number of customers and education level, in other words, it does have no effect on the perception of FFR.