To read this content please select one of the options below:

Psychological mechanisms linking ethical climate to employee whistle-blowing intention

Lulu Zhou (Southeast University, Nanjing, China)
Yan Liu (Soochow University, Suzhou, China)
Zhihong Chen (Nanjing University, Nanjing, China)
Shuming Zhao (Nanjing University, Nanjing, China)

Journal of Managerial Psychology

ISSN: 0268-3946

Article publication date: 26 June 2018

Issue publication date: 10 July 2018

1494

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a perceived ethical climate influences employees’ intention to whistle-blow through internal organizational channels and incorporates the mediating role of organizational identification and moral identity as well as the moderating role of individual risk aversion.

Design/methodology/approach

The five proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis with two waves of data collected in 2016 from 667 employees in Chinese organizations.

Findings

The findings indicate that perceived ethical climate had a positive effect on employees’ internal whistle-blowing intention, which was mediated by organizational identification and moral identity. Furthermore, employees’ risk aversion weakened the effect of organizational identification, while the moderating role by moral identity on internal whistle-blowing intention was not validated.

Originality/value

This study explains the psychological mechanism of whistle-blowing intention from the perspective of social identity, which contributes to opening the “black box” of the transmitting processes from the perceived ethical climate to whistle-blowing intention. This study also extends the literature by defining a boundary condition of risk aversion that hinders organizational identification influence on employee whistle-blowing intention.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos 71772133, 71402024 and 71332002), and also supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2242018K40174).

Citation

Zhou, L., Liu, Y., Chen, Z. and Zhao, S. (2018), "Psychological mechanisms linking ethical climate to employee whistle-blowing intention", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 196-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-09-2017-0292

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles