Conformity Bias

How times have changed as technologies, have evolved, so too have the tools that cyber attackers use to hack into businesses to access personal information. Fraud has always existed and has hardly changed, only the disguises it uses. In today’s world people, have been taught to push and strive for more and to continue to push for more. This new way of thinking has quickly developed into something uncontrollable. It has caused a new stream of fraud to emerge for it has created higher levels of greed, new methods to detection, as well as new ways to prevention. Having the mindset that one must push for more and continue to push for more has caused people to spend money excessively and uncontrollably even more when much of higher rank officials …show more content…
Conformity bias happens when people act a certain way simply because they witness other people, such as higher rank authorities, doing the same thing. Giving people the feeling that they should do the same since there are added benefits to those actions, unethical or not, and no consequences. As it is stated in The Challenges of Expense Account Fraud, most fraud cases are coming from people who hold some of the top positions within a company such as top executives. Some of the reasons as to why investigators believe that top officials are behaving this way is because people are having a hard time separating their personal life from corporate life. However, there are other reasons as to why people feel obligated to act in an unethical manner in other positions. Some of those reasons could be that “they feel that the rules are unfair”, “…pressure, opportunity, or rationalization” (Daniel Ethics). As more and more top officials participate in this unethical act can create the feeling that one is missing out on luxuries. Being that people are being pressured to push for more it pressures people to rethink and push to gain those same luxuries others are receiving. Thus, causing people to set a lower standard to make it easier for them to act unethically and maybe even continue to behave this …show more content…
Committing an expense accounting fraud can be done easily and some people may not even realize that they have committed fraud. There are different levels of fraud and levels of seriousness. In the heat of the moment when committing the expense fraud, it may not seem like such a big deal. It can happen in a large company or a small company dealing with a variety of business and in all different locations. Having no type of detection or prevention plan can result in huge financial losses and ruining a company’s reputation. Some of the financial losses can be bigger than expected for it can include not only the money already lost but legal cost that will be spent to find out who is responsible, which can be stretched out over long periods of time ultimately racking up the