Institutional Ownership, CEO Characteristics and the Probability of Fraud Occurrence in Firms

A lot of studies focus on market reaction to the disclosure of fraud and managers’ commitment facing financial distortions.However, it is not clear that how firms’ fraud influences decision making and polices of the firms. Most of investors and lawlegislators believe that some features of corporate governance help protect shareholders’ interests and reduce any conflict ofinterest between the shareholders and the management. This can reduce the likelihood of fraud at the firms. The aim of thisstudy is to investigate the relationship between institutional ownership, CEO characteristics and the probability of fraudulentfinancial reporting of listed firms on the Stock Exchange in Tehran. The studied sample consists of 100 firms listed in TehranStock Exchange during the five-year period 2010 to 2014. To verify the hypotheses, multiple regression method is used. Theresults of testing the hypotheses show that there is a significant relationship between institutional ownership, and CEO influenceand the possibility of fraudulent financial reporting in firms. However, there is no significant relationship between duality ofCEO task and the risk of fraudulent financial reporting in firms.

Keywords:

Fraud , Institutional Ownership , CEO Influence , CEO Duality