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RESEARCH CENTER FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS of NAS of Ukraine (KHARKIV, UKRAINE)

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Liburkina L. M.

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Accumulation of Informal Influence as a Structural Predictor of Corporate Fraud: Toward a Proactive Prevention System
Haidukov I. V.

Haidukov, Ihor V. (2026) “Accumulation of Informal Influence as a Structural Predictor of Corporate Fraud: Toward a Proactive Prevention System.” Business Inform 7:63–71.
https://doi.org/10.32983/2222-4459-2026-7-63-71

Section: Economic Theory

Article is written in Ukrainian
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UDC 005.334.4:343.7

Abstract:
The article substantiates the need to shift the focus of a proactive corporate fraud prevention system from diagnosing the personality traits of a potential offender toward analyzing the organizational process of informal influence accumulation. Cressey’s classical fraud triangle explains the conditions of fraud commission post factum but does not describe the organizational process that precedes the emergence of opportunity itself – the disproportionate concentration of informal power in the hands of a single employee. Drawing on French and Raven’s bases of power, Burt’s theory of structural holes, Cialdini’s norm of reciprocity, and Christie and Geis’s concept of Machiavellianism, the author proposes treating influence accumulation as an independent, observable organizational process that can be diagnosed early, irrespective of whether the individual possesses specific personality traits or manages social desirability impression. Based on a generalization of corporate security practice, a system of six operationalized early-risk indicators is developed and detailed: information-hub status, indispensability, competence-boundary erosion, personal loyalty circles, normalization of procedural exceptions, and accumulation of reciprocity debts. For each indicator, a practical method of operational measurement and specific data sources (communication flow analysis, process audits, HR surveys, and non-formal request mapping) are proposed, making them applicable without specialized psychodiagnostics tools. Structural countermeasures acting at the level of organizational architecture rather than the individual are outlined: authority distribution, documentation and duplication of critical knowledge, depersonalization of control procedures, and institutional monitoring of the organizational network structure. The findings form the structural contour of a multi-level proactive corporate fraud prevention system (PRISM).

Keywords: informal influence; organizational power concentration; corporate fraud; proactive fraud prevention system; early risk indicators; corporate security; structural holes; Machiavellianism.

Tabl.: 1. Bibl.: 16.

Haidukov Ihor V. – Applicant, Central Ukrainian National Technical University (8 Universytetskyi Ave., Kropyvnytskyi, 25006, Ukraine)
Email: [email protected]

List of references in article

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