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This study surveyed 195 business students (74 women and 121 men) from three institutions on various aspects of honesty in academics. The study is driven by a concern for the audit implications of the increasing evidence of the link between unethical behavior in college and the workplace and students’ increasing insensitivity to ethical issues. The results of the study evaluate students’ opinions of cheating and the percentage of students who have or would whistle-blow if they observe cheating. The study also examined whether characteristics such as prior cheating behavior, gender, social desirability response bias (SDRB), the belief about doing more about cheating, and prior whistle-blowing will affect a student's intent to whistle-blow. Our data extends prior research on cheating and SDRB by testing their association with students’ self-reported tendency to whistle-blow. Our research indicates that students who have whistle-blown have a higher reported intention to whistle-blow after accounting for the effect of SDRB. Our data indicate that students’ intentions are an important factor that should be considered by instructors as well as researchers.

This study surveyed 309 business students (180 men and 129 women) enrolled in introductory accounting and business law classes on various aspects of honesty in academics. The study was motivated by the need to examine the underlying issues associated with students’ perceptions of cheating and whistle-blowing. An increased understanding of these perceptions would be insightful to professors as well as administrators. The study examines students’ reasons on whether they should whistle-blow and whether their reasons associate with their intentions to whistle-blow if they observe cheating. When examining a student's intent to whistle-blow, we considered the student's prior cheating behavior, gender, social desirability response bias, intentions to cheat in the future, reasons not to whistle-blow, and prior whistle-blowing. Our data extends prior research by considering the reasons students choose not to whistle-blow. Our research indicates that the number of reasons not to whistle-blow and having observed other students cheating reduced the likelihood of a student whistle-blowing, after controlling for social desirability response bias. The research indicates that to prevent unethical behavior in the future, institutions need to enforce consequences for those who cheat because unethical behavior at the academic level associates with unethical behavior in the corporate setting.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of psychological climate perceptions on the employee’s intent to comply with the organization’s whistle-blower policies. This study also endeavors to add evidence to the debate concerning the effectiveness of implementing anti-retaliation measures to improve whistle-blowing behavior. Survey results show that psychological climate perceptions of fairness and commitment to the organization influence the employee’s attitude toward whistle-blower policies, perception of how important others within the organization view the act of whistle-blowing and the employee’s intent to blow the whistle. The results of this study also suggest that anti-retaliation measures used by government policy makers and organizations to improve whistle-blowing behavior may not be an effective strategy. This manuscript discusses the implications of the findings on whistle-blowing behavior and the debate concerning anti-retaliation measures.

Given the conflicting attitudes that people have toward those who report wrongdoing and a lack of empirical research specifically examining subsequent hiring, it is an open question as to whether accounting professionals would want to work with former whistleblowers. The authors examine this question using an experimental design, in which participants evaluate an employment candidate before and after the person discloses having been a whistleblower. Four manipulations of whistleblowing are used in both a within-subjects and a between-subjects manipulation. The authors’ results demonstrate that accounting professionals’ intentions to recommend a candidate for hire decrease after they are informed that a strong candidate has a whistleblowing past. A candidate is viewed most negatively, however, when discovering malfeasance and electing not to blow the whistle internally. Moreover, when the whistle is blown internally and the superior takes no action, the candidate who remained silent and chose not to continue to push the issue is viewed more negatively than the candidate who proceeded to blow the whistle externally. Although a candidate having a whistleblowing past appears to pose a cautionary signal in the interview process, participants reacted more harshly when the candidate failed to act or lacked the durable moral courage to see the matter through to completion.

The act of reporting illegal and unethical practices in the workplace has become an increasingly important issue for researchers and organizational management over the past several decades. This study tested a model of whistleblowing in which perceived organizational retaliation and upward communication satisfaction were hypothesized to act as predictors of types of whistleblowing intentions using a representative sample of employees working in Kirklareli, Turkey (n = 1,012). Structural equation modeling indicated that perceptions of upward communication satisfaction were positively associated to blowing the whistle to internal channels like immediate supervisor and upper management and negatively related to staying silent and external whistleblowing. In addition, perceived threat of retaliation from an organization was negatively related to blowing the whistle to internal channels and positively related to staying silent and external whistleblowing. The present study has contributed to our understanding of whistleblowing in a relatively new national context by clarifying its associations with perceived organizational retaliation and communication with management.

Prior research suggests both formal and informal norms influence employee behavior. While increased training is a typical recommendation to strengthen formal norms by increasing adherence to organizational codes of conduct, and therefore improve ethical behavior, there is little empirical evidence that code training actually strengthens formal norms or improves ethics-related behavior. Conversely, prior observations of unethical behavior serve as strong indicators of informal norms. These observations may be unknown to management and therefore difficult to moderate using other means, including with training on a code.

We test the impact of prior observations of unethical behavior and training for a code of conduct on intentions to report unethical behavior in the future, as well as possible mediators of these relationships. We find some support that training on the code increases intention to report and strong support for the notion that prior observations of unethical behavior decrease intentions to report. Responsibility to report and norms against whistle-blowing both mediate the prior observation-to-reporting intentions relationship, but not the training-to-reporting intentions relationship. An interesting by-product of training seems to be that, by increasing awareness of unethical behavior, and therefore the salience of prior observation, training may have indirectly influenced intentions in the opposite direction intended.

Constructive deviance has received increasing attention across the last 20 years. However, because the distinction between constructive and traditional forms of deviance (i.e., destructive) is based on the intent behind the behaviors, it can be difficult to determine which acts are constructive. As an umbrella construct consisting of several forms of deviant acts (e.g., whistle-blowing, employee voice, necessary evils), research into constructive deviance has largely remained focused on the individual behaviors to date. While advancements have been made, this focus has limited the consideration of an overarching understanding of constructive deviance in the workplace. Further, constructs like constructive deviance that straddle the bounds between beneficial and detrimental necessitate the exploration into their antecedents as determined by the employees (i.e., apples), their environments (e.g., barrels), or some combination of the two. The author seeks to advance the research in constructive deviance by proposing a testable model. In which, the author develops an interactionist perspective of the antecedents to reposition constructive deviance as the acts of good employees in restrictive or negative environments. In doing so, the author considers how various aspects of individuals, their organizational environments, and the influence of their leaders interact. The author then develops a multi-stakeholder approach to the outcomes of constructive deviance to consider how the various parties (i.e., organization, coworkers, customers) are expected to respond and how these responses impact the more distal outcomes as well as the likelihood of engaging in future constructive deviance.

This study explores the whistleblowing judgments and intentions of accounting students utilizing scenarios involving accounting earning’s manipulations and fraud. Individual differences affect how one makes decisions yet are rarely explored in the whistleblowing literature. As such, the authors conducted an exploratory study to determine if one’s cognitive style (the method a person uses to perceive incoming information and how they make decisions) affects whistleblowing judgment and intent. Using multivariate regression, the authors find that cognitive style significantly affects moral sensitivity, whistleblowing judgment, and whistleblowing intent. This chapter makes several important contributions to the existing literature. This is the first study that explores whether cognitive style affects moral sensitivity, whistleblowing judgments, and whistleblowing intentions. Second, it demonstrates that the models which exclude individual differences may be incomplete.