Should I Blow the Whistle? An In-Depth Study Towards Revealing Determinants of Whistleblowing

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-076-3_34How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Whistleblowing; Discourse Network Analysis; Whistleblowing Determinants; Focus Group Discussions

Abstract

This study explores why employees in an organization report or do not report unethical practices in the workplace. This study applies a qualitative approach using focus group discussions to 19 informants selected based on employee characteristics (such as type of employee, tenure, and managerial position) who work in an educational institution in Indonesia. This study employs Discourse Network Analysis to generate various themes (reasons) for informants to report or ignore unethical practices they knew. The results found that the main reason for reporting unethical practices was to find a solution or when it was deemed detrimental to the reporter. The main reason for not reporting was because it was considered normal or because the perpetrator was a friend. In addition, informants chose not to report when they acted by reprimanding the perpetrator directly. The research does not capture data and information on whistleblowing practices from various organizations; therefore, further studies can expand the scope of various organizations in several countries to obtain complete, comprehensive, and comparable results. Managers should provide a whistleblowing system in the company and provide a conducive working environment for employees to willingly report any wrongdoings or unethical behaviors. Previous studies have examined the influence of individual, external and situational factors that encourage whistleblowing. Yet, limited studies reveal the reasons for someone actually to report–or reasons for ignoring–unethical practices that they know. The results of this study contribute to the scientific field of business ethics through the new findings of whistleblowing and the unique research methods used.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Erlinda Nusron Yunus
AU  - Yunita Andi Kemalasari
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/12/12
TI  - Should I Blow the Whistle? An In-Depth Study Towards Revealing Determinants of Whistleblowing
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th Asia Pacific Management Research Conference (APMRC 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 443
EP  - 455
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-076-3_34
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-076-3_34
ID  - Yunus2022
ER  -