Bulu, C. M., Matei (Pan), M., Mustea, A. O., & Coman, M. D. (2024).The Intersection of Corporate Governance, Ethics, Internal Audit, and Bankruptcy Risk Management: A Bibliometric Analysis.Agora International Journal of Economical Sciences,18(2), 63-72. https://doi.org/10.15837/aijes.v18i2.6941

Abstract:This study employsa mixed-methods approachto delve intothe intricate interplay among corporate governance, bankruptcy risk, forensic accounting, internal auditing, and ethics.While prior researchhas highlighted thecorrelation between weak governance, increased bankruptcy risk, and ethical lapses, the synergies among these factors necessitate deeper investigation. The authors conducted a meticulous bibliometric analysis of the Scopus database,focusing on therealms of accounting,internal audit, forensics, bankruptcy, and ethics within the overarching domain of corporate governance. Emphasizing the importanceof robust governanceprinciples in mitigatingrisks in accounting,the study revealed asubstantial coverage ofresources across variousdisciplines, with accounting (54.6%) and ethics (25.1%) leading the distribution. The dataset, comprising 5990 resources from 495publications cited 151,911times spanning from1978 to March2024, serves as a valuable resource forscholars aiming tofortify organizational resilienceby integrating critical concepts identified in this research.Keywords:Corporategovernance, Bankruptcy risk,Forensic Accounting, Internal audit, Ethics.

INTRODUCTION: Corporate governance is the one-setting framework for business ethical behavior, which in turn shapes the organizational culture and guides the business operations to ensure corporate performance. In recent decades, corporate governance and business ethics have faced increased scrutiny due to high-profile corporate failures and scandals. Weak governance and unethical practices can pose significant risks to an organization's long-term viability, including financial distress,fraud, and regulatorynoncompliance. However, thecomplex relationships between governance, ethics, forensic accounting controls, internal auditing, and bankruptcy outcomes have not been thoroughly explored as part of financial resilience within corporate governance.This study aimsto address youngresearchers toward anacademic approach tothe interplay ofthe areas coveringaccounting, internal audit,forensics, bankruptcy, andethics a complex bibliometricoutput from theScopus database todefine the authors' perspective of organizational resilience. The authors consider this as a start for further research within the frame of sustainability and resilience domain. The firststep in ensuringa company canbecome sustainable fromthe financial, environmental, social,and risk management perspective isto ensurefinancial resilience.A struggling company that faces a lot of financial challenges may have a very hard time having concerns regarding environmental and social issues, no matter how important and necessary they may be. Analysing these issues through the magnifying glanceof ethics, risk management, and internal audit processes can provide insights to help organizations strengthen resilience against threats to their sustainability.

Literature review: On May2023, Dun &Bradstreet defined "resilience"in business termsas those organizations that can " identify risks early, adapt to negative external changes and maintain businessoperations during difficultsituations" (Dun &Bradstreet, 2023), combinedwith corporatesustainability and purposefor business continuityor long-term survival(Florez-Jimenez, Lleo, DanvilaDel Valle, &Snchez-Marn, 2024), thusbuilding the conceptof "corporate sustainable development performance" (Yao & Wang, 2024)The economic environment has been so often impacted by globalization (Lama, 2013), financial distress (Otivbo & Ofuan, 2023), financial scandals and repercussions (Ajayi-Nifise, Olubusola,Falaiye, Mhlongo, & Daraojimba, 2024),Covid-19 pandemic supplychain disruptions (Mohammed, Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, & Diabat, 2021), war business conditions (Obj & Voronovska, 2024), extreme environmental events (Wu & Tham, 2023), artificial intelligence challenges(Singh & Goyal,2023) and madecompanies understand thatall financial risk-driven decisions include a company's ability to obtain critical information on all probable risks identified. Although many companies are following corporate governance principles, it does not automatically translate into becoming more sustainable or recognizing the added business value of a result. (Beloff, Tanzil, & Lines, 2004)A significant role in managing all the risk factors within a company increased the need for big data tools and then analysis specialists to identify and implement" ways to achieve improved competitive advantage and to build internal and external capabilities" (Bag, Dhamija, Luthra, & Huisingh, 2023) to help companies to identify, assess, mitigate, reduce, and eliminate risks in business resilience goals. "Bibliometrics is to scientific papers as epidemiology is to patients" (Lewison & Devey, 1999) by following the trajectory of a research area of published information and the related data in the form of authors, citations, abstract, keywords by visualization of their relationships in the form of network nodes' plots (Ninkov, Frank, & Maggio, 2022). As in accounting and finance, a bibliometric analysis uses quantitative and qualitative approaches (Ellili, 2023), the quantitative study for relationships and interconnections of the bibliographic material and the qualitativeanalysis to examinethem in depthfor better understanding(Charl de Villiers, Dumay, & Maroun, 2019).

Data and methodology: Corporate governanceis a vastand longtime approachedsubject by theacademiccommunity,so a Vosviewer(Van Eck &Waltman, 2009) techniquewas used sinceit is apopular method of measuring the dimension and the novelty of the research area.Vosviewer wasselected as theresearch method dueto its technicalrobustness andfriendly user approach in finding correlations between concepts (Kirby, 2023) to undertake auseful startingapproach for morecomplex further research.Using the Vosviewercomputerprogrammingfor text miningfor the aboveconcepts and keywordsused by authorsin theirresearch in the Scopus database, bibliometric research and providing a visual correlationwereestablished. A search in Scopus for the keywords bankruptcy, internal audit, forensic, ethics,corporate governance,and accounting, separatelygenerated impressive numbersof articleswritten. A search for all the concepts together generated through 0 results, even a mix of fouror 3 concepts combined did not produce significant data to beanalyzed. So, a mixed-methodsstudy wasconducted, by generatingindividual bibliometric queriesof only twoconceptskeywords,corporategovernance & accounting,corporate governance &internal audit,corporate governance& forensic, corporategovernance & ethics,corporate governance andbankruptcy. Thenthe results exportedindividually in CSVfile type werecombined into asingle file, transformed in xlsxfile for the descriptive analysis, and also uploaded in VOS tocreate the interconnectivity of the keywords for all the concepts, thus generating the results forthe initial query. The case studies provided context to help authors find the resources for all theconcepts involved and to have a good perspective of the references' quantity and quality input,demonstrating the interconnectivity between corporategovernance,accounting, internal audit,forensics, bankruptcy, and ethics within academic research.

Results and discussions:The data set obtained by combining the concepts was further analyzed using a mix oftools, likeVos Viewer,excel, and Jaspto assess whatkind of analysiswould help youngresearchers in their quest. Performing descriptive statistics in Excel we find that out of a totalof5,990 articles, 15%benefited from funding,28% are openaccess and 89%have anidentification DOInumber, as perthe below figurefor open accessfrequencies analysis,worked in the statistical program Jasp.

Examining the number of articles written over time from 1978 to early 2024, we find that very few articles combine the author's keywords corporate governance and forensic(50 articles in total representing 1%) and bankruptcy (366 articles in total representing 6%). Table 1:Breakdown of the dataset into categoriesSource: authorsGenerating ahistogram for thenumber of articleswithin the timeframe, we findan asymmetrical distribution, aleft-skewed distribution (negatively-skewed), withhigh density for the years 2000 to 2024, when we have an average of 236 articles per year, comparing with the previous period 1978 -1999 when we had an average of 6 published articles per year. The pivot table output generated in Excel can be reviewed in the Annex of this article. Figure 2: Frequencies histogram chart for the number of articlesSource: authorsIn Excel we generated a combo chart to combine the number of articles written per year with the number of citations, resulting a table showing the maximum number of articles have been published in 2023 (a total of 574 articles) and the highest number of citations are met in the year 2008 (12,424), followed closely by the year 2010 (10,263). Most probably the articles written in the last 10 years will generate more citations within the next years, as new academic research will probably follow.

CONCLUSIONS: This studyextends previous researchby demonstrating thecomplementary roles ofinternal controls,forensic accounting, creditrisk management, andethics initiatives ingovernance's influence. When integrated within an ethical culture and robust controlenvironment, these functions contribute to effective governance in practice for resilience andsustainability.This research identified the gap between several limited articles written on bankruptcy,forensic accounting,and ethics withinthe area of corporate governance.The internal auditcomponent can be the link of governance principles and audit procedures to better enhance thecompany's resiliencein terms ofrisk management forfinancial sustainability andfrauddetection for resilience purposes aswell.Another aspectsince the bibliometricstudy was performedcombining accounting,ethics, bankruptcyrisk management, internalaudit, and forensicaccounting was thelack offinancial indicatorsand ratios involvedtaken into accountfor corporate resilience andsustainability except only one cluster where financial ratios had the occurrence 7 times. In theauthors' opinion,all techniques andtools for frauddetection, risk management, andinternalauditing are done on the accounting information in the form of ratios, and financial indicators. A search involving a large amount of data can have limitations in terms of lacking thein-depth search of the area, going article by article, which would mean a lot of time allocationto identifyother gaps as well,maybe having amore qualitative significancethan thequantitative approach by using Vosviewer. Maybe artificial intelligence tools will offer shortlythe possibility tointerconnect big dataanalysis with qualitativeinformation generated in aneasier way for both the scientific committee and corporations. In conclusion,this study providesempirical evidence ofthe intricate relationshipbetween corporate governance, internal controls, forensic accounting, ethics, and bankruptcyrisk. Toenhancesustainability,organizations should considerthese issues holistically,adopting anenterprise risk managementapproach rather thanaddressing them inisolation.Therefore,a comprehensive examinationof the interplaybetween soft andhard controls iswarranted.The findingsoffer guidance topractitioners on strengtheningorganizationalresilience through coordinated reforms in these interconnected domains

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