Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
5-2024
Abstract
The recent wave of corporate scandals has necessitated a more systematic investigation of internal whistle-blowing as a potential way to prevent wrongdoing. Our understanding of whistle-blowing, however, has been hampered by a deep chasm that exists between employees’ intent to blow the whistle and their whistle-blowing behaviors. We argue that to fully bridge this gap, we need to consider employees’ cognitive states at the time of whistle-blowing intentions versus behaviors and to link these cognitive states to the ethical systems within the organization’s ethical infrastructure to understand which systems are more effective in cultivating whistle-blowing intentions and which systems help translate those intentions into behaviors. Across one multisource field study and one multiwave experiment, we found support for our arguments that top management valuesbased communication systems, which are more high construal (abstract), affect whistleblowing intentions whereas ethical accountability systems and ethical retaliatory systems, which are more low construal (concrete), moderate the relationship between whistleblowing intentions and behaviors. By linking ethical systems within the organization’s ethical infrastructure to the two stages (intentions and behaviors) of the whistle-blowing process and the accompanying cognitive states, we develop and empirically test a construal level theory of internal whistle-blowing.
Keywords
whistle-blowing intentions, whistle-blowing behaviors, ethical infrastructure, construal fit, construal level theory
Discipline
Organizational Behavior and Theory | Organization Development
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
Organization Science
First Page
1
Last Page
27
ISSN
1047-7039
Identifier
10.1287/orsc.2021.15292
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences
Citation
VADERA, Abhijeet K.; TENBRUNSEL, Ann E.; and DIEKMANN, Kristina A..
Bridging the chasm between intentions and behaviors: Developing and testing a construal level theory of internalwhistle-blowing. (2024). Organization Science. 1-27.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7501
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.15292