Determinan of Asset Misappropriation in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Abstract

This study investigates the factors influencing employees’ intentions to engage in asset misappropriation, a common and largely overlooked issue in Accounting and Ethics, within the context of small and medium sized businesses. Guided by the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (ETPB), the research examines how attitudes, subjective norms, moral norms, and perceived behavioural control (PBC) shape employees’ intentions to misappropriate assets. Adopting a descriptive survey design, data were collected through structured quantitative questionnaires from a target population of 600 across all the 29 local government areas of the Greater Accra region. Out of these, 470 valid responses were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that attitudes, subjective norms, and moral norms significantly influence employees’ intentions to engage in asset misappropriation, whereas PBC does not exert a significant effect. The findings suggest that organizations should emphasize ethical training, cultivate positive moral values, and minimize social pressures that encourage unethical behaviour. The study concludes that fostering an ethical corporate culture grounded in integrity and moral responsibility is a more effective approach to reducing asset misappropriation than relying solely on control mechanisms.