One of our main arguments is that the fraud triangle
constitutes a rhetorical tool that professional associations
have used to create and consolidate a field of knowledge
and intervention around individual morality. Our analysis
brings to the fore translations representing the fraud triangle
as a credible technology that allows fraud specialists to
speak authoritatively and intervene, in certain ways, in
organizational fraud. In so doing, a certain discourse of
normality gains legitimacy through the recruitment of allies
around and fabrication of a concept that appears to
be technical and descriptive, but contains a very specific vision
of fraud.
The feeling of neutrality is sustained by a series of illustrations
focused on the least controversial examples. This
also serves to present fraud as ‘‘inherently’’ unacceptable.
Lumping these ‘‘serious acts’’ (e.g., bribery, misappropriation
of funds) with trivial deviances (e.g., arriving late at
work, taking long breaks) and more controversial actions
(e.g., working more slowly than asked by the hierarchy,
workplace resistance) then serves to justify considering
any ‘‘workplace deviant behavior’’ as a fraud that should
be systematically condemned, deterred and punished.
Fraud is constituted, therefore, as reprehensible and immoral,
though relatively controllable when organizations
establish appropriate surveillance systems. The notion that
morality boundaries vary in time and space (Douglas,
1966) is ignored.
These findings contribute to our understanding of the
links between fraud, organizational control and society.
Previous studies argued that today’s society is characterized
by a proliferation of control and audit technologies
to restore trust – but that basically promote distrust
(Power, 1997). Our study can be viewed as an examination
of the problem of trustworthiness. We showed that a climate
of suspicion is promoted in the fraud triangle literature
and that the organization is deemed a legitimate site
for restoring trust through intervention. Our analysis also