The corporate investigator is a detective in the private policing business undertaking internal examinations in client organizations. He or she conducts commercial inquiries by undertaking factual reviews of documents, interviews with suspects, and other investigative steps. The client expectation is that corporate investigators will uncover and verify the facts of the case, reconstructing past events and the sequences of events, allowing the client to make informed decisions to either litigate or resolve matters on a commercial basis (King, 2012, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d, 2021). The corporate investigator is hired by both private and public corporations to find answers to questions (What happened? When did it happen? How did it happen? Who did what to make it happen or not happen? Why did it happen?), when there is suspicion of misconduct and potential financial crime by white-collar offenders (Button, 2020; Gottschalk, 2016, 2020, 2021; Meerts, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021; Wood, 2020).

1. LEADERSHIP IN BRAINSTORMING FRAUD

During an internal investigation by fraud examiners, the examiners need to review findings and potential evidence of fraud. An element of the review process is brainstorming, where the examiners challenge each other on their thoughts and opinions. Brainstorming refers to a group creativity technique where efforts are made to develop new knowledge for a specific issue by triggering spontaneous ideas contributed by participants. Major investigations tend to involve a number of people where some are senior and some are junior to the knowledge needs of the specific examination. Professional standards for internal investigators require that fraud examiners engage in brainstorming as part of every review to inform fraud judgments throughout the investigation. A senior figure has to take on the leadership in the fraud brainstorming to secure responsiveness to fraud risk and fraud detection capabilities. The typical senior in a law firm is a partner in the firm. A law firm partner can play a critical role in leading brainstorming sessions and demonstrate the importance of this leadership in achieving brainstorming objectives.

Dennis and Johnstone (2018) conducted a natural field experiment examining the joint role of partner leadership and junior knowledge in fraud brainstorming. While their empirical study was concerned with audit partners and their subordinates, lessons can be learned from their study for law partners and their associates.