The Effects of Machiavellianism and Ethical Environment on Whistle-blowing across Low and High Moral Intensity Settings

Abstract

While Dalton and Radtke (2013) examine the effects of Machiavellianism and an organization's ethical environment within a low moral intensity setting, I examine the effects of Machiavellianism and an organization's ethical environment across both low and high moral intensity settings. Using a sample of 192 MTurk workers (i.e., online labor pool participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk) and 127 undergraduate accounting students, the results using the full-sample of participants indicate the following: (1) Machiavellianism is negatively associated with whistle-blowing intentions across both low and high moral intensity scenarios; (2) an organization's ethical environment is positively associated with whistle-blowing intentions across both low and high moral intensity scenarios; and (3) in the low moral intensity scenario (but not the high moral intensity scenario), I find an interaction between Machiavellianism and the strength of the ethical environment. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Citation

Dalton, D.W. (2021), "The Effects of Machiavellianism and Ethical Environment on Whistle-blowing across Low and High Moral Intensity Settings", Karim, K.E., Fogarty, T., Rutledge, R., Pinsker, R., Hasseldine, J., Bailey, C. and Pitre, T. (Ed.) Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research (Advances in Accounting Behavioural Research, Vol. 24), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1475-148820200000024002