Beyond credentials: fraud prevention among certified internal auditors in Indonesia's prosecution service
Abstract
When prior studies found fraud prevention weak, their samples pooled au-ditors of mixed certification, experience, and training, so the weakness could always be attributed to credential deficits. This study held credentials con-stant by design. All 75 internal auditors in Indonesia’s prosecution service holding auditor certification, at least five years of oversight experience, and risk-based audit training (the entire qualified subpopulation of a 285-auditor frame) answered a 28-item, five-point Likert questionnaire developed from validated frameworks. Responses were analysed with partial least squares structural equation modelling; common method bias was assessed statis-tically, significance multiplicity-corrected. Organisational culture, internal control effectiveness, the role of internal audit, risk-based audit, and audit quality were each positively and significantly associated with fraud preven-tion (statistically indistinguishable standardised coefficients, 0.209 to 0.247), explaining 79.2% of its variance. Yet every construct mean sat at the lower edge of the high category (3.420 to 3.760), lowest for risk-based audit, whose weakest item, risk-assessment-based annual audit planning, de-scribes a condition set by the institution rather than a skill its auditors lack. The residual weakness cannot be attributed to missing credentials; future research may test, with objective outcomes, institutional conditions beyond the perceptions measured here: whistleblowing-system effectiveness, lead-ership integrity, and sanction enforcement.