Symposium 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Why the Whistle Often Remains Silent: The Role of Ethical Infrastructure and Construal Fit in Translating Whistle-Blowing Intentions into Behaviors (#259)

Abhijeet Vadera 1
  1. Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, Singapore

The recent wave of corporate scandals has necessitated a more systematic investigation of precursors of whistle-blowing as a potential way to prevent wrongdoing. Our understanding of whistle-blowing, however, has been hampered by limited theoretical frameworks as well as a dearth of empirical research that focuses on whistle-blowing intentions and behaviors simultaneously. This paper tackles these issues head on by integrating research on construal fit with that of ethical infrastructure (top management communication, surveillance and sanctioning systems) to examine factors that affect whistle-blowing intentions and translate those intentions into behaviors. Across two experimental studies, a field study with matched supervisor-employee data of 495 employees working in 99 teams, and a second multi-wave field study with 500 matched supervisor-employee pairs, we found that top management ethical communication systems, which evoke a high level of construal, affect whistle-blowing intentions while ethical sanctioning systems, which evoke a low level of construal, moderate the relationship between whistle-blowing intentions and behaviors. By investigating the relationship between organizational systems and cognitive construal, our findings respond to the call to integrate micro and macro level processes in the study of ethical decision-making and underscore the importance of considering both intentions and behaviors to further understand and promote whistle-blowing.