A scientometric analysis of the structure and trends in corporate fraud research: a 66-year review

Purpose: This paper aims to review corporate fraud, as a concept, and the emerging research trends in corporate fraud research from 1957 to 2022 using bibliometric analysis techniques. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 7,750 publications from the Scopus database were first assessed using performance analysis to explore the descriptive nature of the bibliographic data, and subsequently, citation, co-citation, co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling analyses were conducted using the VOSviewer software. Findings: The results indicate there has been increasing growth in fraud research over the years, especially since the global corporate scandals of 2008. Although fraud is a global issue, the results suggest that most extant studies originate from developed economies, with a high level of collaboration amongst scholars in these countries. In addition, the co-occurrence analysis indicates that research into corporate fraud has largely focused on its determinants and corruption. The determinants identified are further clustered in the paper as individual, organizational and national-level factors. Practical implications: The findings should inform practitioners and policymakers of the state of knowledge on corporate fraud which could be useful in developing strategies and policies to mitigate its occurrence. Social implications: The study points to the need for research collaborations among scholars in developing economies to increase investigations into the occurrences of fraud. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to holistically assess the intellectual structure of corporate fraud studies from its inception and the trends over time.