Symbolic and substantive actions in the creation and management of a corporate fraud: The Boi Gordo case

Abstract

In this paper, the results of an inductive interpretive study of a notorious corporate fraud case, which occurred in Brazil from the 1980s to the 2000s, are reported. Through the content analysis and discourse analysis techniques, the process of creating a fraudulent scheme is analyzed, besides its maintenance for more than one decade. The substantive aspects were studied – the schemes created and managed by fraudsters –, as well as the symbolic aspects – the resources for impression and image management used by fraudsters. This analysis led to the development of a model of corporate fraud, which aims to understand the fraud occurred through a process perspective. One hopes this model can contribute to improve the understanding of corporate frauds, since it addresses the way how fraud occurs and shows how fraudsters take substantive and symbolic actions to create, develop, and sustain it.