Whistle blowing and research integrity: Potential remedy for research misconduct in Malaysian institutions of higher education

Snitches Get Stitches and End Up in Ditches: A Systematic Review of the Factors Associated With Whistleblowing Intentions

“…In regard to the mixed findings regarding gender, this might be due to the different environments and organizations in which whistleblowing was assessed. Evidence suggests that organizations have different practices and policies on whistleblowing, which are linked to intentions (Olesen et al, 2019). Overall, though, these mixed findings indicate that gender might not be as important as other personal factors that are associated with intentions to blow the whistle.…”

“…In particular, ethical leadership within an organization is positively associated with whistleblowing intentions (e.g., Alleyne, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016), along with leadership styles, such as transformational leadership (Caillier, 2013). Linked to leadership, is how leaders within an organization ensure that they offer protection to those who may blow the whistle through handling reports of whistleblowing (Scheetz and Fogarty, 2019) and ensuring that there are policies and practices in place to protect individuals (Olesen et al, 2019). The explanation of Olesen et al's (2019) could lie in Siegrist et al's (2012) effort-reward imbalance model.…”

“…The extent to which organizations had policies and procedures to protect whistleblowers was also linked to intentions. That is, organizations with policies and procedures to protect individuals was linked to greater whistleblowing intentions (Xu and Ziegenfuss, 2008;Cho and Song, 2015;Wainberg and Perreault, 2016;Omotoye, 2017;Olesen et al, 2019).…”

“…Six studies examined the quality of the relationship with a wrongdoer and how it affected whistleblowing intentions. Each reported that relationship closeness with the wrongdoer was negatively associated with whistleblowing intentions (Milliken et al, 2003;Hwang et al, 2008;Alleyne et al, 2013;Erickson et al, 2017;Satalkar and Shaw, 2018;Olesen et al, 2019). That is, people had stronger intentions to blow the whistle on people they were not very close to.…”

“…Whistleblowing intentions increased if members of a group were negatively affected by wrongdoing (Trevino and Victor, 1992) or the group would benefit from whistleblowing (Victor et al, 1993). The threat of being confronted by team members, as a consequence of whistleblowing, was negatively associated with whistleblowing intentions (Kaplan et al, 2010;Olesen et al, 2019). When groups within an organization approved whistleblowing, intentions to blow the whistle on a wrongdoing were higher (Kennett et al, 2011), whereas when a group disagreed with whistleblowing, intentions were lower (Miceli and Near, 2002).…”