Stance of Accounting Instructors to Forensic Accountancy Profession: Example of Turkey

Considerable firm scandals that have been experienced in recent years, have reduced the confidence to financial statements and have caused amendments to be made on existing regulations. This situation brought attention to accountants and auditors that expose the financial conditions of the firms. The scandals have been experienced, revive the importance of accounting auditing and the increasing responsibility of the auditors. Inadequacy of accountants and auditors that have been educated according to the existing curriculum, conduce a new profession to arise. Being its original name “Forensic Accounting”, this profession, that exhibits rapid progress in delevoped countries with United States of America in the lead, is known as “Forensic Accountancy-Adli Muhasebecilik” in our country. Forensic Accountancy profession; with its services as litigation support consultancy, expert testimony and fraud auditing (investigative accountancy) fills a large gap in this field. This study is aimed at measuring the awareness of accounting instructors against this profession that has not been applied in our country yet. For this purpose, the survey being developed is going to be forwarded to accounting instructors in an attempt to determine the level of awarenesses. This study deals with the scope of forensic accountancy profession, the specifications of forensic accountants, belonging to forensic accountancy profession and the education of forensic accountants, thereby this study attempts to explain the level of awareness and to comment on survey results.