Abstract

The paper investigates the relationship between knowledge (KR) and mindset (MR) on task performance fraudrisk assessment (TPFRA) of forensic accountant and auditor in the public sector environment.It also examinesthe claim that forensic accountants possess higher level of KR, MR and TPFRA than auditors. The study designis cross-sectional. Survey questionnaire is used. The 300 respondents are real professional people (i.e., auditorsand accountants in the Nigerian public sector) as true representatives to enhance the generalisation of theoutcomes. PLS-SEM and IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 were used as the primary statistical analysis tools for thestudy.The results of the present study confirm the positive relationship of KR and MR on TPFRA.Specifically,the results revealed that forensic accountants have higher levels of KR, MR and TPFRA than auditors in theareas of fraud prevention/deterrent, detection and response.Because of the adoption of cross-sectional design inwhich data are collected at one point of time, there is no time to wait for different follow-up stages orinterventions before data analysis. Researchers are encouraged to use longitudinal design to explore interactionsbetween KR, MR and TPFRA. This empirical study has revealed the value of KR and MR (forensic accountantand auditor) as a significant capability requirement in the workplace. Since no nation is immune to fraud and asloss due to fraud is costly, the result of this research will improve the corporate governance and accountabilitypractices among public sector accountants and auditors.

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