unethical accounting practices and behavior. Unethical behavior occurs when there is a combination of motive and opportunity, along with a lack of integrity.

Situations that contribute to ethical lapses in accounting occur because of the very nature of accounting fraud being a white collar, non-violent crime. Accounting provides an opportunity to "cook the books" and exercise one's greed without pointing a gun or breaking into someone's house. Accounting crimes are tempting because nobody seems to be getting hurt (Xaxx, 2011).

There are people, who under other circumstances would never seek out a crime to commit, will submit to the temptation to commit accounting crimes just because the opportunity presents itself. Accounting often deals with large sums of money, some of which may be easily hidden, siphoned off, or removed with little likelihood of detection. Some people find this amount of temptation hard to resist, especially if they see themselves as...
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