Personal responsibility and knowledge about money laundering: a study with Brazilian accountants

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the personal responsibility, the intrinsic knowledge of the norms and the knowledge of signs of money laundering of accountants.

Design/methodology/approach

The research was developed with responses from 381 Brazilian accounting professionals through a survey, statistically analyzed using structural equations.

Findings

The results indicate that personal responsibility directly affects the levels of intrinsic knowledge and knowledge about signs of money laundering; however, the different dimensions of knowledge were not related to each other.

Practical implications

From these results, organizations can clarify the individual about their responsibility, optimizing the use of training and mitigating costs, with greater sustainability and security for the organization, employees and business partners.

Social implications

The results contribute to the construction and modeling of latent constructs on money laundering knowledge, with validity, reliability and statistical significance.

Originality/value

This research discusses and empirically explores the knowledge about money laundering of the accountants’, one of the main explanatory factors of whistleblowing in business.

Citation

Sallaberry, J.D., Venturini, L.D.B., Martínez-Conesa, I. and Flach, L. (2024), "Personal responsibility and knowledge about money laundering: a study with Brazilian accountants", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 667-680. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-03-2023-0068