This study aims to examine accounting fraud in Morocco through the lens of ethical accountability and governance in a Muslim-majority context. Rather than treating fraud primarily as a technical or individualised deviation, this study conceptualises it as a systemic outcome shaped by the interaction between institutional reforms, organisational practices and culturally embedded ethical expectations. It seeks to move beyond technical and individualistic explanations of fraud by analysing how cultural norms, organisational structures and ethical rationalisations interact to normalise unethical practices despite formal compliance mechanisms.
This study adopts a mixed qualitative–computational research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with accountants and auditors operating at different hierarchical levels. Qualitative content analysis was combined with sentiment analysis and topic modelling to capture thematic, emotional and latent narrative structures embedded in practitioners’ accounts, allowing for robust methodological triangulation and enhancing interpretive depth in analysing ethically sensitive organisational phenomena.
The findings show that accounting fraud in Morocco emerges from the convergence of hierarchical authority, collectivist loyalty, weak governance structures and moral rationalisation. High power distance discourages ethical challenge, while relational obligations and performance pressures facilitate silence and justification of misconduct. Although ethical and religious norms are formally endorsed, they are weakly institutionalised in organisational practice, creating a gap between moral ideals and everyday accounting behaviour.
The findings suggest that fraud prevention in emerging and Islamic contexts requires multidimensional reforms that go beyond procedural compliance. Strengthening ethical leadership, protecting whistle-blowers, reinforcing auditor independence and embedding moral accountability within organisational cultures are critical to restoring trust and improving governance effectiveness.
This study contributes to Islamic accounting and business research by providing an empirically grounded analysis of fraud in a Muslim-majority context, illustrating how cultural and organisational dynamics dilute ethical accountability. By theorising fraud persistence as a product of misalignment between formal governance mechanisms and relationally structured organisational behaviour, this study enriches both fraud theory and Islamic accounting scholarship.
