Factors affecting internet frauds in private sector: A case study in Cyberspace Surveillance and Scam Monitoring Agency of Iran

Abstract

Cyberspace has had a huge influence on all economic, social, political, cultural, and scientific activities of humans and basically has changed the societies. Although it has lots of benefits, it has created a space in which the criminals can commit a crime as well. In this study we focused on internet frauds and according to 321 managers of private companies who answered the questions about the factors of committing internet frauds according to the frauds they had reported to Cyberspace Surveillance and Scam Monitoring Agency of Iran about their employees, we argued that there are two main groups of factors, (1) individual and inter-organizational factors including organization structure, personality-job fit, conflicts between individuals and the organization, performance evaluation system, supervision and control, (2) environmental and external factors including rules and regulations, economic and political conditions, infrastructure, culture. To rank the value of these factors we used Friedman test. We believe that cyberspace is a unique and important tool for organizations to utilize, but if not used well, these kinds of crimes that have already emerged, and those yet to emerge, will continue to be ineffectively addressed.