Reliable financial reporting is critical for maintaining market confidence and guiding stakeholders’ decision-making, yet traditional audit methods often fail to detect sophisticated fraud schemes that are hidden within large volumes of transactional data. This systematic literature review synthesizes 43 empirical and theoretical studies published between 2010 and 2024 that utilize data analytics techniques for the prevention and detection of fraud in financial statements. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we conducted a four-phase review—identification, screening, eligibility assessment, and inclusion—to ensure transparency and reproducibility. Our analysis categorizes techniques into supervised machine learning classifiers (e.g., decision trees and neural networks), statistical anomaly detection methods, network-based analyses, and real-time monitoring frameworks. We evaluate each approach’s comparative effectiveness, highlight persistent challenges such as data imbalance, model interpretability, and governance constraints, and also trace evolving methodological trends over time. The review reveals that integrating predictive analytics and continuous monitoring into accounting information systems can transform audits from reactive investigations into proactive fraud prevention mechanisms. We conclude by proposing a future research agenda focusing on developing explainable AI models for audit applications, establishing robust data governance frameworks to support automated monitoring, and conducting longitudinal field studies to assess the real-world impact of analytics-driven controls.

This study examines the merger decisions from a sample of Greek listed companies in the economic crisis period and shortly after its end, by employing various quantitative and qualitative variables of mergers that signalize different levels of risk. The results revealed that the performance subsequent of mergers is not significantly different for the merged companies. But in comparison to control sample of companies without mergers for the examined period, the results reveal that merger transactions signalize a more stable profitability and better performance for the companies with mergers. Furthermore, merger events signalize different performance levels during and after the crisis: mergers that took place when there was no economic crisis are far more profitable and lead to better performance from mergers during the period of economic crisis. Last, regarding the industry relatedness of the merged firms, the industry type and the merger combination of merged companies, there is not any impact from them on the post-merger performance in the examined accounting measures. The study proposes for companies that during crisis periods maybe merger be the only way to survive and provide a stable profitability and accounting performance for shareholders.

In the aftermath of major corporate financial scandals, corporate governance and internal control frameworks have been extensively developed and adopted by corporations worldwide. This study investigates the importance of internal audit in corporate governance and, simultaneously, the degree of importance of the internal auditor regarding corporate governance. An empirical survey was conducted by distributing a questionnaire in Greek firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. Regression analysis is used in order to illustrate the gathered information. The findings indicate that internal audit has a great impact on the effectiveness of corporate governance. More particularly, internal audit quality and internal audit senior management support are statistically significantly associated with enhanced corporate governance effectiveness, in contrast to the audit committee independence which is not statistically significant.

Greek municipalities involved in mandatory mergers from the Kallikratis program after the end of 2010. The purpose of this study is the accounting evaluation of Greek municipalities after the implementation of the Kallikratis program in the period of the economic crisis in Greece (2011 and onwards). To examine the success of the Kallikratis program in a difficult era for Greece we examine public accounting data for several accounting measures for the Greek municipalities; also we try to reveal if any municipalities’ geographical area gained better performance under these circumstances. The results of this study showed that with the Kallikratis program, several municipalities, apart of new increased responsibilities in the post-Kallikratis period and with reduced state financial support, managed to achieve better results with increased their cash and cash equivalents, their securities and decreased their short-term debt. Last, according to the geographical area, these mandatory municipal mergers were more beneficial for some municipalities than to others, with better financial performance, limiting its obligations and improving its net position, thus providing us new insights to local development for Greece.

During the last decade, corporate irregularities created an unstable economic environment, which highlighted the importance of internal audit function (IAF) and audit committee (AC) in the context of corporate governance worldwide. However, a small number of researches have dealt with informal interactions between the audit committee and the internal audit function in Greek entities. In this context, this article investigates, on the one hand, the existence of informal interactions between the audit committee and the internal audit function, whereas on the other hand, it emphasizes on the determination of the factors associated with their existence. In particular, an empirical survey was conducted with the distribution of a questionnaire to Greek entities listed on the Athens Stock Exchange and a logistic regression analysis was used to illustrate the information gathered. This study indicates the existence and the factors influencing informal interactions between the audit committee and internal audit function in Greece. More particularly AC independence, AC chair characteristics and CAE characteristics (independent and objective) were found statistically significantly associated with the informal interaction between the two functions.