This study is aimed at analyzing the characteristics of forensic accounting services performed by accounting firms in Brazil, using an exploratory approach. At the end of the study, there is a discourse analysis of a speech made by the CEO of one of the key players in forensic accounting services (Kroll) in Brazil. In order to guide this reflection, we pose the following question: what is the characteristic of forensic accounting that substantiates professional accountants' innovation to curb corporate accounting malpractices? In this intent, we accept the premise that the bone of contention in some unhealthy business environments is the inability of an auditor to track frauds. We used the icons (categories and/or nodes) that dynamically represent formalism in the theory of self re-production to explain the patterns found in the speech. Our findings make us conclude that the idea that frauds have been least detected by auditors begins to gain shape as auditors are more adequately trained to detect frauds instead of emphasizing the traditional segregation of duties and safeguard of assets.
Forensic; Accounting; Fraud; Audit
