A Review on Corporate Financial Misconduct: The Definition, Motivation and Influencing Factors

With the research of Merton (1938) on deviant behavior, a new concept of organizational misconduct has been gradually formed in academic field [1]. It is of great significance to study the financial misconduct in accounting, even in finance and economics. In this paper, the definition of corporate financial misconduct, motivation and influencing factors are reviewed, and it shows that the study of organizational misconduct involves all aspects of corporate management, but this financial misconduct is still to be further investigated; rational choice, strain theory and corporate culture may become the motives of financial misconduct. Individual characteristics such as moral cognition development, values, moral philosophy, demography and external business environment are important variables to determine the financial misconduct behaviors. The future study of corporate financial misconduct needs to pay attention to the interaction among enterprises and the related research may provide the possible mechanism for controlling corporate financial misconduct under China's management environment.