The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) hosted its 12th Annual Undergraduate Research Competition during their conference in Cancun, Mexico, April 16-18. Among competitors from universities across the nation, Samford University senior, Lauren Dumar, a Brock Scholar from Tampa, Florida, won first place. 

 

Her research is titled “Toward a more effective approach to fraud detection: Cost benefit analysis of monetary unit sampling versus data analytics procedures to uncover fraudulent transactions”. It consists of a direct analysis of the effectiveness of performing both monetary unit sampling as well as audit data analytics to determine which method catches more fraud and which method is more cost-beneficial when catching fraud. 

 

In her work, Dumar concluded that both effective and cost-beneficial driven companies should utilize audit data analytics when detecting fraudulent activity. In other words, audit data analytics leads to both catching more frauds and obtaining a higher benefit when incurring lower costs. Therefore, data analytics should drive the audit for both effective and efficient/ cost beneficial companies. She also found that it may be worthwhile for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to consider their own comparison of analytics tools with standard audit procedures used to detect fraud. 

 

Dumar attended the conference with fellow Samford students Reagan Bovenkamp, a Brock Scholar from Dallas, Texas, and Reed Burton, a political science major from Brentwood, Tennessee. Professor Art Carden, Assistant Professor Joy Buchanan and Assistant Professor Reggie Harris also attended the conference. Harris attended as part of APEE's Young Scholars progam and was invited to  participate in a panel on the impact of competition and entrepreneurship. Assistant Professor Kevin Pan served as Dumar’s research adviser. 

 

Dumar said, “The APEE conference was a great ending to my undergraduate career at Samford. I had such a great time learning from the economists that attended the conference, as well as other Samford students. This was an amazing opportunity, and I’m so grateful I was able to attend. I want to thank my adviser, Dr. Pan, as well as Dr. Alan Blankley for being so gracious and amazing—I couldn't have done this study without them. I also want to thank Dr. Carden for arranging the trip, Dr. Sara McCarty for leading the Brock Scholars program, and other accounting faculty that assisted me during this research—Mrs. Cam Pearce, Dr. Cynthia Lohrke, Dr. Jim Reburn, Dr. Brandi Holley and Dr. Bill Belski.” 

 

Pan said, “It was a pleasure to work with Lauren. She has tremendous intellectual curiosity and dedication to the highest quality of work. Further, we want to thank many other Brock School of Business faculty members for their input on this project. Lauren's pursuit of academic excellence and the faculty's collegiality are a testament to Samford being a leading university dedicated to teaching, research and the Christian mission.”

 

Dumar will remain at Samford over the next year as she pursues the Master of Accountancy and prepares to sit for the Certified Public Accountant exam. She has accepted a job offer from EY in Tampa, Florida, where she will start in fall 2024.

 

Carden said, “Lauren’s performance in the undergraduate research competition testifies to the kind of students we have and the kind of mentoring they receive from professors like Dr. Pan. This award represents the culmination of several years of dedicated, excellent work.”

 

Dumar joins 2022 Samford graduates, Catherine Buchanan and Sydney Rennich, as highly successful participants in this annual research competition. In April 2022, Buchanan won first place and Rennich won third place in the competition during APEE’s conference in Las Vegas.