Peterson Co-authors Articles on Fraud

Bonita Peterson, Montana State University-Bozeman College of Business associate professor of accounting, had two instructional fraud articles published. Both cases are actual frauds that have occurred recently and are designed to help teach accounting students to prevent and detect fraud in an organization.

The first case, Student Health Services: A Case of Employee Fraud, was co-authored with Tom Gibson, MSU-Bozeman treasurer and a Certified Fraud Examiner. The case was published in the Journal of Accounting Education in January, 2003.

The introduction of the paper states that the perpetrator was a long-time trusted employee. Using this real life example, the paper outlines six learning objectives to help students better understand fraud issues. It reviews the facts, warning signs, the investigation and how the case was resolved.

Peterson, along with former MSU-Bozeman accounting graduate student Angela D. (Lende) Ammann, wrote The Smiths and the Government Welfare Benefits Case, which was published in the Fall 2002 issue of The Journal of Accounting Case Research. As an independent study project, Ammann researched and drafted the case, which Peterson subsequently revised and followed through the journal's review process.

Ammann graduated from the College of Business in 2000 and is a CPA working for KPMG in Minneapolis. "It was a pleasure to work with Angela on this project. She was an outstanding student in all respects, and the fraud knowledge she acquired is useful to her as an auditor," Peterson said.

A third article, "Anti-Fraud Education in Academia," which Peterson co-authored with Dr. Thomas A. Buckhoff of North Dakota State University, was presented in March 2003, at the American Accounting Association Southwest Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas. This article provides suggestions for faculty who wish to design a fraud examination course for business students.