Ethical awareness, ethical judgment and whistleblowing : a moderated mediation analysis

Latan, Hengky and Chiappetta Jabbour, Charbel Jose and Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Ana Beatriz (2017) Ethical awareness, ethical judgment and whistleblowing : a moderated mediation analysis. Journal of Business Ethics. pp. 1-41. ISSN 0167-4544 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3534-2)

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Abstract

This study aims to examine the ethical decision-making (EDM) model proposed by Schwartz (2015), where we consider the factors of non-rationality and aspects that affect ethical judgments of the auditor to arrive at the decision to blow the whistle. In this paper, we argue that the intention of whistleblowing depends on ethical awareness (EAW) and ethical judgment (EJW) as well as there is a mediation moderation due to emotion (EMT) and perceived moral intensity (PMI) of auditors. Data was collected using an online survey of 162 external auditors who worked for an audit firm in Indonesia as well as 173 internal auditors working in manufacturing and financial services. The results of the multigroup analysis show that emotion (EMT) can mediate the relationship between EAW and EJW. This relationship becomes more complex when moderating variables using Consistent Partial Least Squares (PLSc) approach are added. We found that EMT and PMI can improve the relationship between ethical judgments of the auditor and whistleblowing intentions. These findings indicate that internal auditors are more likely to whistle the blow than external auditors; and reporting wrongdoing internally and anonymously are the preferred ways to blow the whistle in Indonesia.

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