From Inaction to External Whistleblowing: The Influence of the Ethical Culture of Organizations on Employee Responses to Observed Wrongdoing
48 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2009
Date Written: August 19, 2009
Abstract
Putting measures in place to prevent wrongdoing in organizations is important, but detecting and correcting wrongdoing is just as vital. Employees who observe wrongdoing should therefore be encouraged to respond in a manner that supports corrective action. This paper examines the influence of the ethical culture of organizations on employee responses to observed wrongdoing.The findings show that, contrary to transparency and congruency of management, many other dimensions of ethical culture were negatively related to inaction and external whistleblowing and positively related to direct interven-tion, reporting to management and calling an ethics hotline. The model used for ethical culture explained 27.5% of intended responses by employees.
Keywords: ethical culture, ethics hotline, reporting, whistleblowing, wrongdoing
JEL Classification: M, G3, F23, M14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?
By I. J. Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse, ...
-
Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?
By I. J. Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse, ...
-
Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?
By I. J. Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse, ...
-
Analyst Coverage and Earnings Management
By Frank Yu
-
By Krishna Palepu and Paul M. Healy
-
By Marilyn F. Johnson, Karen K. Nelson, ...
-
Do the Merits Matter Less after the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act?
-
Governance and Intermediation Problems in Capital Markets: Evidence from the Fall of Enron
By Paul M. Healy and Krishna Palepu
-
The Screening Effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
By Stephen J. Choi, Karen K. Nelson, ...