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The purpose of this paper is to apply Chester Barnard's ideas about authority in organizations to the modern phenomenon of “whistle‐blowing” and highlight insights that can advance contemporary theory in business ethics. The paper coins a new term “the whistle‐blowing zone,” and uses it as a way to capitalize on Barnard's insights and to offer a conceptual framework that can help business ethics scholars explain the phenomenon.

By comparing and contrasting Barnard's ideas with contemporary research, the authors argue that he provides a number of insights that can advance modern business ethical theory and research. Implications about the origin and mechanism of whistle‐blowing are discussed.

First, it is found that Barnard's theory of authority, specifically the notion of a “zone of indifference” is applicable to the modern phenomenon of whistle‐blowing. Second, the paper coins a new term “the whistle‐blowing zone,” to explain why and how whistle‐blowing occurs. Finally, the paper develops a conceptual framework to capitalize on Barnard's insight to explain the phenomenon of “whistle‐blowing.”

This paper is the first paper to examine Barnard's writings in the context of the modern business issue of whistle‐blowing. It is believed that the study of business ethics can be enhanced by applying Barnard's work. His concept of authority in formal organizations actually provides the theoretical foundation to examine and understand the phenomenon of whistle‐blowing in ways that have not appeared in the literature to date.

This study aims to investigate the whistle-blowing behaviour in Ugandan public procurement by using whistle-blowing supporting institutions, procuring and disposing entity (PDE) ethical climate and whistle-blowing expectancy.

A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted using a sample of 118 drawn from a population of 179 central government (PDEs). Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, resulting in 222 usable questionnaires from 70 PDEs, representing a response rate of 62.71 per cent.

The results reveal that the whistle-blowing supporting institutions and PDE ethical climate are significant predictors of whistle-blowing intentions and behaviour, accounting for 30.2 per cent of the variance. The authors therefore recommend that whistle-blowing supporting institutions, like the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, should be reviewed and strengthened to promote whistle-blowing intentions and behaviour. This could be done through reviewing the Act to make it enforceable, giving power to the whistle-blowers, strengthening policies, developing safeguards against retaliation by making every chief executive officer in the public sector accountable, increasing whistle-blowing incentives and providing whistle-blowing hotlines for anonymous whistle-blowers. PDEs should also create conducive ethical climates that encourage people to voice their concerns internally or externally, and ethical committees should be established within PDEs and other bodies such as the Inspector General of Government for ensuring that whistle-blowing systems are in place and promoted. There is a need to increase whistle-blowing expectancy through the effective handling of reported cases to their conclusion and the use of role models.

Whistle‐blowing is the act of speaking out about wrongdoing in the workplace. Adults with learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable to abuse, and care staff play an important role in witnessing and reporting such abuse. This paper explores the experience of whistle‐blowing on abuse in social care settings and looks at how whistle‐blowing can help to protect people with learning disabilities from abuse.

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.

Many corporate scandals that occurred recently have indicated the importance of a whistle-blowing mechanism in preventing fraud and malpractices from damaging the organizations. By selecting one organization that has experienced a corporate scandal, this study aims to examine factors that influence employee’s intention to blow the whistle to prevent malpractices in the company. In addition, this study also examines the perceptions of employees regarding the business culture in their organization and how this culture impacts their intention to whistle-blow.

This study engages in a mixed method of data collection, namely, survey questionnaire and interviews to gather the data.

It is found that retaliation is the most important factor that influences the employee’s intention to whistle-blow, followed by the burden to prove the malpractices, cost implications as a result of the wrongdoing and the action taken by the authority as a result of the fraud reporting. In terms of business culture, a large number of employees are reluctant to become a whistle-blower, although a secured and safe whistle-blowing mechanism is in place, indicating that Asian customs of collectivism and assertiveness play a major part in shaping the whistle-blowing mechanism in Malaysian organizations.

The results provide further confirmation of the determinants that influence employees to report wrongdoings in the organizations. This study however may subject to self-reported data biasness because of sensitivity of the research that related to fraud and immoral behaviours that occur in the company. Owing to this sensitivity, the study only focuses on employees’ internal whistle-blowing intentions rather than their actual intentions.

This study helps the management to understand the working culture in the company so that they can identify the weak area of governance which needs improvement such as whistle-blower protection.

This study is original, as it focuses on the employees in a big organization such as government link companies that have experienced corporate scandals albeit having whistle-blowing mechanism in place. In addition, the finding of this study contributes to the theory and body of the literature on the whistle-blowing determinants, currently scarce in the context of a developing country like Malaysia.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a validated food safety whistle-blowing scale and examine how training influences food handlers’ whistle-blowing, the mediating roles of job satisfaction and food safety self-efficacy and the moderating roles of organization type and gender.

A sample of 734 food handlers from the food service industry and 306 food handlers from the food processing industry were recruited. A two-step psychometric process was conducted to validate the scale, and a moderated mediation model was used to examine the mechanisms through which food safety training influences whistle-blowing.

The results showed that job satisfaction and self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between training and whistle-blowing. Organization type moderated the first step of the two indirect paths and gender moderated the second step, thereby supporting the mediated-moderated model.

The results indicate the influence of food safety training programs on whistle-blowing behaviors and suggest other methods of enhancing employee whistle-blowing through human resource management.

A validated scale is lacking to measure whistle-blowing in the food safety context, and little research has examined the influence of human resource practices on whistle-blowing. This study provides meaningful insights for researchers by developing and validating food safety the whistle-blowing scale, connecting training with whistle-blowing, and provides useful information for practitioners by offering the methods of enhancing whistleblowing in both the food processing and food service industry.

Whistle-blowing has the important role of reducing the prevalence and impact of wrongdoing in organisations. The purpose of this paper is to utilise a very large survey of Australian Public Service (APS) workers to replicate the findings of previous studies in relation to whistle-blowing likelihood and to extend the quantitative findings in relation to whistle-blowing antecedents to include ethnicity or cultural marginalisation and occupational and professional role and affiliation.

The authors utilise the 2014 APS Census, a large data set containing 100,000 observations relating to employee engagement, leadership, health, satisfaction and general impressions of the public service. Logistic regression is employed to obtain estimates and marginal effects in respect to predictors for whistle-blowing. The authors determine the Bayesian information criterion to assess the impact of ethnicity on the probability of whistle-blowing.

The findings support the notion that organisational “outsiders” tend to report perceived wrongdoing less than those who feel assured of their cultural or organisational status. The authors further find support for the notion that membership of small organisational groupings, primarily measured by organisational size, also tends to reduce the whistle-blowing likelihood. Opportunities for further research and potential policy and practical issues are discussed briefly in conclusion.

While confirming the predictors seen in many previous studies, the authors identify groups who report more or less than expected that have not been reported in previous research. These include employees from a non-English speaking background and various occupational and professional groups “at risk” of low reporting.

Turkey is required by the international and EU instruments and domestic law to address the issue of whistle-blowing and the protection of whistle-blowers. The purpose of this paper is to analyse Turkish legislation which is applicable to work-related whistle-blowing, the conflict between the worker’s right to “blow the whistle” and the obligation to loyalty and confidentiality. The consequences of groundless or deliberate false disclosures are considered. Comparisons are made with international conventions, the COE Recommendation CM/Rec(2014)7 and the Proposed EU Directive on the Protection of Whistleblowers and ECtHR precedents.

In the first part, this paper reviews the definition of whistle-blowing and whistle-blower. The second part outlines the impact of international and EU Law on Turkish legislation. The third part reviews the Turkish legal framework applicable to whistle-blowing.

Whistle-blowing in the public interest is suggested as a tool to combat corruption worldwide. There is no doubt that some whistle-blowers have been beneficial to society. However without democratic structures to take into account the assessment of the quality of the information, the type of the disclosure and the category of the reporting person, there are downsides to excessive whistle-blowing. Therefore, whistle-blowing should be discussed in the context of democratic societies, and a balanced approach should be adopted to ensure the position of not only whistle-blowers but also the people affected by the reports.

The paper offers new insights into the limits of work-related whistle-blowing within the context of freedom of expression and the right of employees and public officials to petition. The protection of whistle-blowers and the consequences of groundless or deliberate false disclosures under Turkish Law from a comparative perspective are considered.