Fraud prevention: A study of skepticism moderating variable

Abstract

Fraud is bad behavior that can cause significant harm to the organization (Omar et al., 2016). Fraud must be prevented, but low emotional intelligence (EI) and professional commitment (PC) fueled by skepticism encourage actions that harm the organization to continue (Mohd-Sanusi et al., 2022). With skepticism as a moderating factor, this study aims to ascertain how emotional intelligence and professional commitment affect fraud prevention (FP). Forty-two respondents participated in this quantitative study of accounting department staff at the Regional Work Units (SKPD) Gowa Regency in South Sulawesi. SmartPLS 3.0 was used as this study’s analysis tool, and the questionnaires used to acquire the research data were from surveys. The moderation test results demonstrate two types of moderation: quasi-moderation and moderating predictors. Quasi-moderation demonstrates that the skepticism variable mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and fraud prevention variables. The quasi-moderation variable interacts with the dynamic intelligence variable and is independent. Skepticism solely serves as an independent variable in the study model because it does not affect how the professional commitment and fraud prevention variables are related.