Abstract: According to the fraud “triangle theory”, the causes of professional embezzlements committed by executives of China’s state-owned enterprises are mainly from pressure, opportunities and excuses. Among them, pressure is a huge psychological burden and desire generated by the combined action of the self-interested value orientation of the economic man and the value??-oriented market economy in the pursuit of wealth. Opportunity refers mainly to the weak restrain on the asset operation responsibility of the executives, the cultural atmosphere of advocating the status and authority in the enterprises, and the lack of necessary power balance and internal control, all of them are caused by the system defects of the company systems under the public ownership. Excuses mainly have such forms as “kickbacks”, “borrowed money” and unreasonable design of remuneration and incentive systems, etc.. The effective way to prevent executives of state-owned enterprises from committing professional embezzlement is to select the personnel with excellent conduct and ability as executives, create the corporate culture of honesty and trustworthiness, perfect a variety of mechanisms and systems, urge the effective implementation of the system, and maintain the normal operation of the mechanism.

Key words: the Triangular Theory; executives of state-owned enterprises; professional embezzlement