Benefits of Forensic Accounting: Detecting and Preventing Fraud in Organizations

1. What are the benefits of forensic accounting?

2. How does forensic accounting detect fraud in an organization?

3. Can forensic accounting help to prevent fraud cases in an organization?

Clarity: You are expected to clearly state why you have chosen your topic. Academic: You must provide a fully referenced academic justification for the project (e.g.: the issue is under-researched, requires updating, is a new use of theory, a contemporary issue etc.) Rationale should link to the research question. 

Literature review & critical discussion Coverage: 
In your literature review, you will be expected to provide critical discussion of the significance of the findings from your sources and indicate how this aids in answering your research questions. You must justify any claims you make about your topic, using the academic sources to support your arguments. This means providing references to existing research and reasons why you assert something is so. There should be a strong theoretical approach adopted throughout the discussion which may, for example, be achieved by using and applying theory/academic debates to undertake an analysis of practical problems and issues that (business) organisations are facing. 

Structure & clarity: You should write in a clear concise manner and structure your sections, so that it flows logically towards your conclusions. 

Critical analysis: Your discussion should be analytical and evaluative rather than simply describing the content of other sources. You should build an argument throughout your work and compare and contrast differing points of view. These arguments should be well evidenced and supported by credible sources. 

Relevance: You should show the relevance of the material you discuss throughout, evaluating the significance of your findings. Excellent work will locate the topic in a broader business & social context but the relevance of any ‘digressions’ must be clearly signalled to avoid losing marks.

Conclusion & recommendations for future research: 
Your project should then offer conclusions and a final evaluation of the chosen topic in which you make recommendations for future research or investigation. This discussion should again refer back to and address/ answer your research questions. It is important to note that your conclusions should be more than a summary of your discussion. Instead, you should discuss the implications of your findings, directly in relation to your research questions. Guidance will be given on this important part of the process in the lectures and Workshops.

Flow from discussion: Your conclusions should stem from your discussion. You would not usually incorporate entirely new material in this section, nor introduce fresh insights into your topic.

Related to questions: You should summarise the key points from the preceding section and analyse/ evaluate them to answer/ address the questions you identified at the beginning of the project. One way to do this is to arrange your conclusions section with each question as a heading. 

Logical/ reasonable: Your recommendations should be a constructive consideration of further research that might be carried out on your topic in the future. Strong projects will consider the limitations of non-empirical studies (e.g.: those based solely on secondary data or a review of published literature) and suggest ways these might be overcome.