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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a change of corporate governance occurs after financial crimes in Canada revealed through external whistleblowing.

Based on the methodology of Smaili and Arroyo (2019), the authors implement a qualitative research framework to examine 11 alleged Canadian corporate financial statement fraud cases publicly exposed during the 1995–2012 period.

The analysis suggests that firms had a weak traditional corporate governance mechanism before the external whistleblowing occurred. In almost every case, the chief executive officer (CEO) was also the chair of the board of directors. Although the reports by Dey and Saucier recommend that independent directors make up at least 75% of Canadian boards, we note that the percentage of independent directors was under 70% in six cases. Moreover, only two firms had a whistleblowing policy in place, and seven firms had a major shareholder. Regarding the consequences for corporate governance after whistleblowing, the analysis shows that the companies that survived the whistleblowing had enhanced their internal corporate governance by the third year after the whistleblowing. In fact, at all the surviving companies, the CEO was no longer the chair, and the percentage of independent directors had increased to 80%. However, for those survival companies that did not have a whistleblowing policy before the event, the situation did not change quickly, and they only implemented a policy after the enforcement of the new regulation in the year 2003.

This paper adds new insights to the research on financial crime by investigating the relation between corporate governance and whistleblowing.

The study aims to examine the extent of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of Canadian cannabis firms and how they view responsibility. It also explores how cannabis firms build their CSR-based organizational identity through Twitter.

Deductive and inductive content analyses were carried through on tweets for a sample of 18 firms listed on the Canadian marijuana index during the legalization period of the recreational use of cannabis.

The results of this study show that cannabis firms approach responsibility by focusing on consumer and community/local development and by raising awareness and providing product information. The findings also highlight that the firms build their organizational identity mainly around their products’ medical benefits, the scientific efforts behind product development and the continual stigmatization they experience. At the industry level, cannabis firms attempt to build a harmonized identity to neutralize stigma.

This study allowed for a comprehensive understanding on how cannabis firms position themselves within an emergent sin industry and how they create their CSR identity through Twitter. It advances our understanding on the meaning of responsibility about the specific and distinctive features of the cannabis industry. From the methodology side, this study developed two content analysis tools: a coding instrument and a dictionary. These tools could be useful for conducting future studies related to the CSR disclosure of cannabis firms worldwide.

For more than four decades, scholars from diverse disciplines and countries have been interested in the act of whistleblowing. To battle financial fraud, financial regulators have been developing whistleblowing programs to motivate and protect whistleblowers, i.e. those who sound the alarm after witnessing an illegal act in their organization. The purpose of this article is to review five historical phases of whistleblowing research. The authors analyze the themes covered by whistleblowing studies conducted over the past 50 years and draw a snapshot of the evolution of whistleblowing research.

The authors examine academic papers published between 1970 and 2022 and inventory the disciplines involved in the literature and changes in the definition of whistleblowing.

The findings show the progress made in academic research (especially for the accounting discipline) regarding whistleblowing. The themes covered by academic studies became progressively diverse. However, this broader scope limited the depth of analysis and the level of self-criticism in the academic research. All but a few articles fail to view whistleblowing in light of its actual level of complexity, and the rationale behind limiting the definition of whistleblowing can only increase this myopia. Although most academic studies have adopted Near and Miceli (1985) definition of whistleblowing, the literature has yet to reach a consensus. Indeed, the analysis shows that Near and Miceli’s (1985) definition of whistleblowing is incomplete and narrow by today’s standards, not to mention out of step with regulators’ needs.

The main contributions are offering a big picture of whistleblowing academic research's evolution and proposing a more complete and updated view of this act.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether large blockholders are associated with financial statement fraud at their companies. Although a substantial body of prior studies has focused on chief executive officers’ motivations to manipulate financial statements, the correlation between majority shareholders and financial statement fraud has received little attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating whether the sample firms have controlling shareholders or executives (i.e. blockholders vs management) and whether financial statement fraud schemes, motivations and consequences differ between blockholder- and management-controlled firms.

Using a clinical approach, the authors Study 12 Canadian financial statement fraud cases uncovered by the Ontario Securities Commission between 1997 and 2020.

First, the authors find blockholder control in six cases. These findings infer that these large shareholders received private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. The comparative analyzes suggest that fraudulent firms controlled by blockholders go bankrupt more often than those controlled by managers. The authors also find that improper disclosure is the most common fraud scheme in blockholder-controlled firms.

The authors conduct a deep analysis of financial statement fraud cases to examine the of blockholder control on the likelihood of financial statement fraud. This paper adds new insights to the research on financial crime by investigating whether large shareholders affect the probability of fraud and the extent to which they might do so.