The power of big data affordances to reshape anti-fraud strategies

This paper examines how the integration of big data in forensic accounting practices is reshaping fraud detection processes. To capture the effects of this integration we used the perspective of affordances enabled by big data, an approach derived from sociomateriality. The research adopts a qualitative approach based on seventeen semistructured interviews with forensic accountants. This qualitative approach allows us to identify dispositional and relational affordances. Findings show that big data enables some significant affordances. As dispositional affordances, big data and big data analytics tools ensure a greater depth of the analysis. The power of visual analytics in fraud detection is highlighted in both dispositional and relational affordances.