The Effect of Accountability, Transparency, And Integrity of Church Leaders on Fraud Prevention in The Management of Church Funds

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the present practices of accountability, transparency, church leaders’ integrity, and fraud prevention activities in handling church finances. The study was guided by agency theory, Stakeholders theory, and the Theory of Planned behavior. The positivist philosophy guided the selection of appropriate methodologies for this research. It adopted a survey research design with a quantitative approach to explore the relationship between the variables and test hypotheses. This study used primary data gathered from questionnaires issued to twelve church leaders in the central dioceses of the Church of Uganda. Cronbach’s alpha was applied to test the reliability of the research instruments. A multiple regression model using SPSS version 20 was used to analyze the obtained data and test the hypotheses. The findings demonstrated that accountability, transparency, and Integrity of Church leaders have a substantial influence on the prevention of fraud in the administration of church money. Based on the findings, the church management should develop effective accountability, Transparency, and integrity system to attract potential donors and make church money management affordable.