The effect of forensic accounting drivers on social distrust trauma to the accounting profession

Purpose This study aims to contribute to the accounting knowledge literature by presenting the framework of forensic accounting drivers and evaluation of its identified factors on social distrust trauma contexts in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Design/methodology/approach This study adopted mixed, both inductive and deductive approach to develop an integrated framework, validate its practicability and verify its effectiveness in selected firms listed on the TSE, respectively. In developing the framework and implementation procedure, the study used an exploratory data collection (qualitative) approach to review the phenomenon of the shadow accounting functions. Then, in the second phase, this study tested the research hypothesis through a partial least squares process. The population of the study is made up of all financial managers and heads of the accounting department of capital market companies in Iran. Presently, there are 185 companies (TSE). From this, a sample of 100 companies was selected which are all in the TSE. As suggested by Niles (2006), a minimum sample size of 10% of the population is generally acceptable. A questionnaire survey was adopted in obtaining primary data for this study. Therefore, based on Cochran sampling techniques, 405 questionnaires were returned and became the basis of analysis. Findings Based on the mixed method of this study, the result in the qualitative part provides the forensic accounting framework of the existence of three categories; there are six components and 39 themes during 13 interviews. In the quantitative section, the results of the study showed that forensic accounting has a negative and significant effect on the trauma of social mistrust in the accounting profession. Originality/value This paper has created a framework that provides empirical evidence for an approach for future research to examine further issues of forensic accounting work. Moreover, this paper, through the provided framework, developed propositions showing relationships between the professionalism level, the legislation infrastructure and the quality of services, particularly in relation to forensic accounting, which helps to develop the protection of shareholders in the future.