Proceedings of the Sustainability in emerging economies - Integrating business excellence in management education (SEE-IBEME-2024)

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Discourse Ethics in Controlling Fraud: A Comparative Case Study

Authors
Ruchi Agarwal1, *
1Assistant Professor, Management Development Institute (MDI), MDI Gurgaon, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
*Corresponding author. Email: Ruchi.agarwal@mdi.ac.in
Corresponding Author
Ruchi Agarwal
Available Online 6 May 2025.
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-696-3_4How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Discourse Ethics; Fraud Control; Communicative Rationality; Organizational Legitimacy
Abstract

This study explores the role of discourse ethics in fraud control by examining how communicative rationality shapes moral reasoning within two large insurance companies in India, operating in similar institutional environments. Drawing on Habermas’s communicative action theory, the analysis categorizes discourse into pragmatic, ethical, and moral realms, focusing on each organization’s approach to fraud management. While Company A employs a cost-centered approach, often overlooking ethical infractions and resulting in reputational challenges, Company B emphasizes transparency, ethical incentives, and stakeholder engagement, leading to a robust fraud control framework. Through 20 interviews with senior and middle management, data collected via comparative case analysis reveals how discourse ethics shapes divergent fraud control practices under comparable coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures. Findings demonstrate that open stakeholder dialogue, anchored in ethical transparency, significantly bolsters fraud prevention and organizational legitimacy. Company A’s emphasis on procedural compliance contrasts with Company B’s proactive ethics, underscoring the limitations of cost-driven approaches in fraud management. The study highlights discourse ethics as an effective tool in fostering ethical legitimacy, with implications for practitioners seeking to enhance fraud control through communication-centered governance frameworks.

Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the Sustainability in emerging economies - Integrating business excellence in management education (SEE-IBEME-2024)
Series
Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research
Publication Date
6 May 2025
ISBN
978-94-6463-696-3
ISSN
2352-5428
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-696-3_4How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruchi Agarwal
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/06
TI  - Discourse Ethics in Controlling Fraud: A Comparative Case Study
BT  - Proceedings of the Sustainability in emerging economies - Integrating business excellence in management education (SEE-IBEME-2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 43
EP  - 56
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-696-3_4
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-696-3_4
ID  - Agarwal2025
ER  -