Whistleblowing from an international perspective: A comparative analysis of institutional arrangements

While there appears to be consensus amongst policy makers that legislation to protect whistleblowers is needed, the emerging policy question addresses what institutional framework is most fit to implement whistleblowing legislation. However, the institutions to whom whistleblowers report—which are in the literature addressed as internal or external recipients of whistleblowing concerns—have been given limited scholarly attention. Research has instead focused on motives, behaviour, and experiences of whistleblowers on the one hand, and whistleblowing legislation on the other. Particularly the role of external agencies, like ombudsmen, anti-corruption agencies, and Inspector General offices, in dealing with whistleblowing concerns has been under-studied. With the aim of starting to fill this research gap, this paper reports the findings of a comparative study of governmental whistleblowing agencies (other than courts) and non-governmental whistleblowing protection organizations (NGOs), as important examples of external recipients of whistleblowing concerns, in 11 countries with whistleblowing legislation. The study aimed to find similarities and differences between these agencies, and to identify challenges and dilemmas that the installation of whistleblowing agencies bring about. Data collection was done by means of 21 interviews with academic experts and high-ranking officials within the selected countries, and in-depth analysis of available (policy) documents and reports. This paper finds that in the studied countries, there is a trend to install governmental whistleblowing agencies that combine various tasks to implement whistleblowing legislation (e.g., advice, psychosocial care, investigation of wrongdoing or retaliation, and prevention of wrongdoing). When such agencies are absent or considered weak, NGOs may step in to fill the need. Whereas most governmental whistleblowing agencies have investigative tasks, in Belgium and in the Netherlands, investigations of wrongdoing and retaliation are done within the same department for the reason that these issues cannot be easily separated. Other agencies have separated these tasks to avoid conflict of interest or because different expertise is claimed to be needed for both. Further research is needed to analyze the effects of each institutional approach, and how to avoid conflict of interest, particularly the risk of partial investigations of wrongdoing. Our study also shows that while not many countries provide government funds for specific psychosocial care for whistleblowers, most governmental whistleblowing agencies do give advice to whistleblowers and invest in the prevention of wrongdoing or training of those who implement whistleblowing legislation. While providing important insights into the role of whistleblowing agencies in 11 countries, this study also develops questions for further research

The Role of Incentives, Emotional Connection, and Organizational Justice in Establishing an Effective Whistleblowing System: An Experimental Study

This study examines the role of incentives, emotional connection, and organizational justice in supporting whistleblowing system. This study used 3x2x2 between-subjects experimental design. The participants are 171 accounting and banking students from universities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, who have an adequate understanding on the duties of a management accountant. The experimental data is processed using ANOVA to compare the mean between the experimental groups. The results indicate that the incentives can encourage individuals to report a fraud on conditions of high emotional relations and low organizational justice. Furthermore, when individuals have low emotional relations and high organizational justice, there is no difference between whistleblowing intention on non-anonymous reporting channels (without incentive) as well as anonymous reporting channel

The Effect of Power Distance, Moral Intensity, and Professional Commitment on Whistleblowing Decisions

Introduction/Main Objectives: Whistleblowing decisions are one of the keys in fraud detection. Considering the rise of fraud cases in organizations, this individual action has a significant impact on organizational performance. Therefore, it is necessary to examine factors that influence the whistleblowing decisions of individuals. Background Problems: This study examines the effect of power distance, moral intensity, and professional commitment on the whistleblowing decision of undergraduate accounting students at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM).Novelty: The novelty of our research is we are filling the gap in previous studies by using students as the population; most studies use employees (such as auditors) as the main population. We use students because they form the next fraud-fighting generation to enter the working environment. Therefore, their understanding and perceptions of whistle blowing activities are crucial. This research is considered to be the first micro-level analysis research in the areas. Research Methods: We adopted the survey method and analyzed it using a regression. We use purposive sampling on 189 undergraduate students from the accounting department. Findings/Results: Our findings indicate that power distance, moral intensity, and professional commitment simultaneously affect accounting students’ whistleblowing decisions. Power distance had a negative and significant effect, meanwhile professional commitment had a positive and significant effect and there was no significant effect of moral intensity toward the whistleblowing. Conclusion: Having professional commitment is essential for whistleblowing decision-making. It needs individual awareness and professional ethics, as well as improvements to people’s morals and values

A report on reporting: Why peers report integrity and law violations in public organizations

The archives of three bureaus of integrity are analyzed in order to study the reasons for reporting integrity and law violations within public organizations. Peer reporting accounts for only a small percentage of cases; most investigations originate from routine and continuous institutional controls. What are the reasons peers choose to report or not report? A sense of justice is most important, followed by self-protection and protection of the wrongdoer. The most important reason against coming forward is the reporter’s fear of negative consequences. One surprising rationale for not reporting is that an individual feels responsible for the wrongdoer’s punishment. Six propositions are elicited from this research as well as specific pragmatic recommendations for management procedures to improve reporting of integrity and/or law violations