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The Factors Affecting the Whistleblowing Intention in
Malaysian Public Sector: A Case of the Ministry of Youth
and Sports
Nur Faradiana Farhan Abdul Kadir, Sharifah Norzehan Syed Yusuf, Farah
Aida Ahmad Nadzri, Nur Aima Shafie, Salwa Zolkaflil
To Link this Article: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARAFMS/v12-i4/15665 DOI:10.6007/IJARAFMS /v12-i4/15665
Received: 11 October 2022, Revised: 11 November 2022, Accepted: 29 November 2022
Published Online: 16 December 2022
In-Text Citation: (Kadir et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Kadir, N. F. F. A., Yusuf, S. N. S., Nadzri, F. A. A., Shafie, N. A., & Zolkaflil, S. (2022). The
Factors Affecting the Whistleblowing Intention in Malaysian Public Sector: A Case of the Ministry of Youth
and Sports. International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting Finance and Management Sciences,
12(4), 302–324.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
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The Factors Affecting the Whistleblowing
Intention in Malaysian Public Sector: A Case of
the Ministry of Youth and Sports
Nur Faradiana Farhan Abdul Kadir1, Sharifah Norzehan Syed
Yusuf2, Farah Aida Ahmad Nadzri2, Nur Aima Shafie2, Salwa
Zolkaflil2
1Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, 2Accounting Research
Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose: Public servant is responsible to act on behalf of the public interest to report any
government officers’ wrongdoings since the government organisation was formed for public
well-being. Therefore, this study is aimed to examine the factors influencing the
whistleblowing intention of public servant in public sector organisation specifically the
Ministry of Youth and Sports (MYS) or Kementerian Belia dan Sukan (KBS), Malaysia. Using
the Moral Intensity Model, this study examines how the magnitude of consequences, social
consensus, and proximity influence the whistleblowing intention.
Methodology: This study is designed to use questionnaire survey to collect data using
purposive/judgemental sampling technique. A total of 350 sets of questionnaires were
distributed to employees of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
Findings: The main finding that social consensus (SC) and proximity (PX) have a significant
relationship with whistleblowing intention (WI).
Originality/value: The incorporation of an additional variable which is the fear of retaliation is
a contribution that this study makes. Thus, this study fills the research gap in Malaysian public
sector and practically, to increase the awareness and whistleblowing activities among public
servants.
Keywords: Whistleblowing Intention, Moral Intensity Model, Fear of Retaliation
The Factors Affecting the Whistleblowing Intention in Malaysian Public Sector: A Case of
the Ministry of Youth and Sports
Malaysia is ranked at 62 for corruption based on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2021 (NST,
2022). This number has dropped drastically within 4 years indicating that corruption in
Malaysia has worsened and that Malaysia has not succeeded in mitigating corruption.
According to the president of the Transparency International Malaysia, Dr Muhammad
Mohan, lack of political will from various administrations in fighting corruption, lack of action
against the public officials who abuse their positions and high profile personalities involved in
the corruption cases that led Malaysia to suffer the drop in the rankings (NST, 2022).
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Over the last 25 years, the biggest corruption scandals involved politicians across political
parties and from the highest reaches of government. Corruption scandals involving public
officers are also regularly reported in the Malaysian media. Public sector corruption refers to
the exploitation or abuse of entrusted power that comes with a public office by a public
official for his/her own benefits and gains (Hashim, 2017).
In public services, examples of corruption cases are expediting service deliver, public fund
embezzlement, bribery in issuance of tender, favouritism, and fraud in the election process.
Many initiatives have been formulated and implemented by the Malaysian Government to
fight corruption. However, the corruption issues in Malaysia are still alarming. Corruption
often goes unchallenged when people do not speak out. Witness accounts for invaluable
insights on corruption, and are powerful tools in the fight against it. Early disclosure and
detection of wrongdoings or the risks of wrongdoings can protect human rights, help to save
lives and preserve the rule of law.
The concern towards whistleblowing activities becomes the main factor in the fight against
fraud and corruption in the public sector when the government introduced a "Whistle-blower
Protection Act 2010" to allow disclosing any activity of abuse, corruption and other
wrongdoing in organizations (Salleh & Yunus, 2015). The Whistle-blower Protection Act 2010
(WPA) was enforced in December 2010 to provide maximum protection to whistle-blowers in
the private and public sectors of Malaysia. Since Malaysia has WPA 2010, an applicable law
as far as whistle-blowers protection is concerned, it is undeniable that whistleblowing plays a
positive function in enhancing accountability, transparency and good governance in any
organisations.
However, the introduction of WPA 2010 by the Malaysian government does not seem to have
any positive implications. The cases of whistleblowing do not seem to increase and the
wrongdoing issues do not show a downward trend but keep on increasing. This further
aggravates the need to investigate the factors that hinder employees to whistle-blow.
Numerous studies have attempted to explain the whistleblowing intention factors and the
perception of whistleblowing of the respondents. However, the studies were basically
focused on the accounting students, the auditor or accountants and other employees from
the private sector. This research is therefore designed to analyse the understanding of the
whistleblowing intention factors by the public servants. Moreover, many studies have
examined the factors of whistleblowing intention using the Theory of Planned Behaviour.
Meanwhile, this study aimed to examine the factors affecting whistleblowing intention of
KBS’ staffs by applying the Moral Intensity Model. This study looked into how magnitude of
consequences (MC), social consensus (SC) and proximity (PX) has affected whistleblowing
intention (WI). Besides, fear of retaliation (FR) is an additional variable to extend the study
based on the model.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports has established the Integrity Unit in their organisation in
order to be in line with the release of Malaysian Service Circular No 6 in 2013 (Pekeliling
Perkhidmatan Bilangan 6/2013). It serves as Focal Point to the Ministry in an effort to
strengthen the integrity of KBS officers, staffs and address issues related to Integrity in the
Ministry. The introduction of the Integrity Unit is also a ministerial internal control initiative
to maintain organizational integrity. Despite the initiatives implemented, the ministry was
ranked among the top 10 most corrupt ministries issued by MACC. The deputy of Youth and
Sports minister said that the ministry was at number 8 out of 25 ministries in which corruption
was a big problem. The ranking was based on MACC’s Public Service Corruption Ranking
released in 2016. Yet, full list of the ranking was not published by MACC since it is confidential.
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Despite legislation such as the WPA, there are still problems of corruption in the department.
In 2016, when former officer of KBS, Otman Arshad, the director of the sports equipment
supplier under KBS, Abdul Gafar and his wife were convicted for corruption involving
procurement tender. From the amount of loss detected, the corruption activity is not likely
to take place in one night but it clearly happened during a long period of time. The loss can
be reduced if the activity was detected earlier and corruption is most attractive where the
risk of detection is low and/or the penalties for detection are slight (David & Steve, 1999).
From the previous scandal that occurred in the ministry, it shows that the initiatives taken on
the whistleblowing practices implemented by the ministry are not effective. Thus, this study
will attempt to determine the factors that affect the whistleblowing intention among KBS
staffs.
Literature Review
Moral Intensity Model
The Moral Intensity Model was introduced by Thomas M. Jones in 1991. Moral intensity is
defined as “a construct that captures the extent of issue-related moral imperative in a
situation” (Jones, 1991). Moral intensity is the factor that can increase whistleblowing
intention. So an individual with a high level of moral intensity will try to do justified and right
things (Kreshastuti & Prastiwi, 2014). In addition, moral intensity was proven to positively
influence whistleblowing intention (Urumsah et al., 2018).
Jones (1991) proposed that the Moral Intensity Model consisted of six dimensions
namely magnitude of consequences, the social consensus, the probability of effect, temporal
immediacy, proximity and concentration of effect (Alleyne & Weekes-Marshall, 2013). The
definitions for each dimensions as referred to (Jones, 1991) are as followed.
1. Magnitude of consequences (MC) is “the sum of the harms (or benefits) done to
victims (or beneficiaries) of the moral act in question”.
2. Social consensus (SC) is “the degree of social agreement that a proposed act is evil (or
good)”.
3. Proximity (PX) is “the feeling of nearness (social cultural, psychological, or physical)
that the moral agent has for victims (beneficiaries) of the evil (beneficial) act in
question”.
4. Probability of effect is “A joint function of the probability that the act in question will
actually take place and the act in question will actually cause the harm (benefit)
predicted”.
5. Temporal Immediacy is “the length of time between the present and the onset of
consequences of the moral act in question”. The shorter the length of time, the
greater the immediacy.
6. Concentration of effect is “an inverse function of the number of people affected by
an act of given magnitude”.
Jones (1991) reported that relationships exist between all dimensions and moral
intensity. Supposedly an increase in any of the dimensions in moral intensity will increase the
level of moral intensity, assuming the other dimensions remains constant. Jones (1991)
further emphasized that these dimensions which represent the characteristics of moral issue
have iterative effects on each other. Hence, an ethical decision will be regarded as having high
level of moral intensity when the action is perceived as unethical by most people, provided
that serious consequences are likely to occur in the near future, and adversely affect large
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sum of individuals who are physically, socially and culturally close to the moral agent
(Shawver, 2011).
The MC, SC, and PX are employed as part of the independent variables (IVs) in this study.
The reason being MC, SC and PX are regarded as significant predictors of moral intention
(Wang et al., 2016; Lincoln & Holmes, 2011). Besides, these three dimensions also form a
single dimension that predict moral intention according to (Barnett, 2001). However, the
depth in past studies that explored the effect of these three dimensions on the WI would
make this study important. The inclusion of these three dimensions aimed to overcome this
deficiency. This study excludes the concentration of effect, the probability of effect and the
temporal immediacy component. The reason being firstly, past researches failed to provide
empirical evidence to include concentration of effect in the moral intensity model (Lincoln &
Holmes, 2011). Secondly, the past studies on concentration of effect appears to have weak
relationship with the moral intention. Thirdly, both Barnett and Frey’s study (as cited in
Lincoln & Holmes, 2011) stated that temporal immediacy had negligible influence on moral
awareness, moral judgment and intention. It can therefore, be assumed that the other three
factors that were excluded show insignificant relationship to the moral intention. Therefore,
the factors were not examined in this study.
Fear of retaliation (FR) is the additional variable included into the proposed framework.
Surveys revealed that most people refuse to whistle-blow primarily because they are fearful
of the retaliation (Wainburg & Perreault, 2016). As such, the personal costs of a whistle-
blower (i.e., retaliation) has become the subject of various past studies (Kennett et al., 2010).
In addition, the inclusion of FR which is a situational factor (as stated in Wortley, 2014) will
make this study more complete because moral intensity is also a situational factor (as
provided in Wang et al., 2016).
Whistleblowing is a complex ethical decision which will be affected by the level of moral
intensity (Clements & Shawver, 2011). Whistleblowing intention (WI) which represents moral
intention in the Moral Intensity Model is applied as the dependent variable (DV) for this study.
This study does not include moral behaviour in its investigation because of the difficulty to
investigate actual whistleblowing cases in organizations and to approach actual whistle-
blowers for questioning (Sampaio & Sobral, 2013). In short, this study aimed to investigate
the association between MC, SC, PX, FR and WI.
Whistleblowing Intention
Whistleblowing Intention (WI) refers to the probability that the individual will be involved in
the behaviour of the actual informant (Chiu, 2003). Generally, there are two types of whistle-
blowers which are internal and external whistle-blowers. Internal whistle-blowers report
wrongdoings to an internal party within the organization such as the senior management,
while external whistle-blowers complaints to a third party such as the government authorities
or regulators. However, internal disclosure may be ineffective when false financial reporting
is made and concealed by other senior executives and executives (management fraud)
(Kennett et al., 2010). This study concerns about an overall effect of moral intensity (MI) on
Whistleblowing Intention and hence, it does not distinguish between internal or external
whistleblowing.
There are also several factors that influence whistle-blowers to decide on internal or
external whistleblowing. It has been shown conclusively that external whistle blowers have
been fired for reporting wrongdoing, thus tending to have less tenure in the organization and
more evidence of wrongdoing (Dworkin & Baucus, 1998). External whistle-blowers often
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report on physically harmful wrongdoing while internal whistle-blowers raising issues related
to less physically harmful types of wrongdoing.
A study which set out to determine the significant relationship between the seriousness
of the wrongdoing on the intention of Malaysian Rubber Board’s (MRB) employees for
whistleblowing conducted by Salleh and Yunus (2015) resulted in a positive and strong
significant effect. The materiality of the fraud occurred influenced the MRB’s employees’
intention to whistle blow. One of the prior studies by Yuswono and Hartijasti (2016) on
whistleblowing was conducted on examining whether or not the perceived behavioural
control influences the public sector employees’ intentions to do whistleblowing. Based on the
results, they concluded that perceived behavioural control significantly influenced the
employees’ whistleblowing intentions.
Magnitude of Consequences
Magnitude of consequences (MC) is defined as harm or benefit to individuals arising from an
action (Shawver & Clements, 2014). It represents amount of loss or gain that other parties
will suffer as a result of a morally debatable act. The more serious the consequences, the
more people may disagree with a particular action (Widya & Nurkholis, 2017). MC
corresponds with the extent to which an individual associate with the consequences of moral
issues, such as the seriousness of the wrongdoing (Sampaio & Sobral, 2013). Valentine and
Hollingworth (2012) also regarded MC as the seriousness of an impact due to an unethical
action. Individuals perceive whistleblowing as necessary that there are given more serious
cases and convictions, thus, whistleblowing seemed to be a right course of action (Sampaio &
Sobral, 2013).
Valentine and Godkin (2019) studied the relationships among individuals’ perceptions
of the MC with whistleblowing intentions. Their findings showed that the seriousness of
questionable act is positively related to the whistleblowing intention. A study by Wang, Keil,
and Wang (2016) proposed a research model that examined the intentions of software
engineers to report IT system bugs based on moral intensity and morality judgement. Their
results indicated that MC had a direct impact on workers' readiness to report bad news.
Arnold et al (2013) investigated the influence of situational context on ethical decision-making
and judgement evaluations among internal auditors, external auditors from small-sized firms
and international firms. They found that Magnitude of Consequences did influence the ethical
evaluation and intention to act ethically. Overall, there seems to be some evidence to indicate
that there is a relationship of the Magnitude of Consequences with the whistleblowing
intention.
Social Consensus
The social consensus (SC) is defined as “the level of social approval whether an action is
considered good or bad” (Yeney Widya & Nurkholis, 2017). The definition was also supported
by Morris and Mcdonald (1995), in which SC is defined as “the level of people’s agreement
about the effect of the social issue”. According to Chen and Lai (2014), SC can be defined as
“the extent of social agreement that the act was evil or good”. SC is also defined as an
agreement about the negativity of an action (Valentine & Hollingworth, 2012). SC is seen as a
social norm where people are usually based on other people's expectations to rationalize
action (Bateman & Valentine, 2013). When people close to him or her approve or agree the
behaviour, an individual will feel less ambiguous and more likely to engage in an ethical
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behaviour (Trongmateerut & Sweeney, 2013). These reflect how people’s action can be
influenced by people that surround them.
In a study which sets out to determine how moral intensity influences the identification
of ethical dilemmas, ethical judgements, ethical intentions for graduate and undergraduate
accounting students, Sweeney and Costello (2009) found that SC had the strongest
relationship with the ethical decision making, compared to other components. The influence
of perceived SC also has been studied on the reporting earnings management internally by
practicing accountants. Shawver and Clements (2014) found that SC was a significant factor
of the respondents’ decision to whistle blow. Chen and Lai (2014) examined the impact of
moral intensity (potential harm and social pressure) on WI and behaviour, mediating by
organizational commitment. Findings showed that there was no significant relationship
between social pressure and WI. Another research conducted that association of three
dimensions of moral intensity (MC, SC and temporal immediacy) with the ethical decision
making among 229 Libyan management accountants. The results revealed that SC has
significant relationship to ethical decision (Musbah et al., 2014). The mixed findings show that
the influence of social consensus on whistle blowing is contextual and can still be relevant.
Proximity
According to Morris et al (1995), Proximity (PX) is defined as “the degree to which an actor
can identify with potential victims of the social issue”. PX also can be defined as “the degree
of closeness between the victim or beneficiary of a moral act and moral agent” (Mencl & May,
2009). PX referred by Shawver (2011) as how socially, culturally, physically close the victim of
a moral act is to the decision-maker. Valentine and Hollingworth (2012) measure PX as “the
closeness to those harmed by the impact of a moral issue”. When victims have close
relationships with individuals, they may be more anxious and their moral judgment will
increase their willingness to report bad news (Lincoln & Holmes, 2011). The study of Singer,
Mitchell, and Turner as cited in Taylor and Curtis (2013) posited that when the moral agent is
close to the victim in question, the empathy is felt to be greater and influence the informant's
intentions. For example, PX effect is greater than layoffs that happened in our own company
(Shawver, 2011). Proximity is the social, cultural, psychological, or physical feeling that
individuals have toward the victim or beneficiary of the action in question, the high proximity
implies high moral intensity (Widya & Nurkholis, 2017). So, proximity plays an important role
in influencing one’s intention.
Study by Carlson, Kacmar, and Wadsworth (2016) examined the impact of three moral
intensity dimensions (concentration of effect, PX and probability of effect) on ethical decision
making of senior level college students. The results supported their hypothesis that PX of an
individual and the victim has positive relationship with perceived ethicality of the act involved.
Another study by Lincoln and Holmes (2011) investigated the relationship of five components
of moral intensity with moral awareness, moral judgment, and moral intention among
students attending a service academy. Empirical findings suggested that PX has moderate
relationship to moral intention. The study of Wang et al (2016) proposed a model to study
the effect of moral intensity on the intention of employees to report system bugs. Based on
survey data collected from 173 software engineers, results revealed that PX to victims
indirectly influences intentions of bad news reporting through morality judgment. Research
by Mencl and May (2009) explored the effect of MC and different types of PX (social,
psychological, and physical) on the ethical decision-making process of human resource
professionals. Findings exhibited that PX does not influence ethical decision making.
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The different findings reveal that proximity may or may not influence individual ethical
decision making and other factors like fear of the consequences of whistle blowing, may
prevent them to whistle blow.
Fear of Retaliation
Retaliation is defined as undesirable actions taken against a whistle-blower as a result of
internal or external whistleblowing (Rehg et al., 2008). Another definition of retaliation is a
range of positive or negative consequences encountered by whistle-blower in direct response
to whistleblowing (Erkmen et al., 2012). Examples of potential consequences of reporting
wrongdoings might be being fired or early retirement, difficulties to secure employments,
being insulted or harassed and suffering false allegations about the character and actions of
the whistle-blowers (Kennett et al., 2010).
Retaliation can also be defined as 'taking adverse action against an employee for
opposing unlawful employment practices or participating in any investigation, proceeding or
hearing in connection with such practice' (Cortina & Magley, 2003). In other words, retaliation
is a direct or indirect adverse administration decision and/or action that is threatened,
recommended or taken against an individual who has reported suspected wrongdoing or
cooperated with an authorized audit or an investigation of a report of wrongdoing. Adverse
action or threat are not an easy action to be taken by the administration, but it is assumed
that the whistle blower is exposed to the threat and to the administration retaliation act.
Kaptein (2011) highlighted that employees were facing a risk of one or more types of
retaliation from an organization such as nullification, isolation, defamation or expulsion if
they report any wrong doing of an organization. It is because reported any wrong doing is
considered as challenging the organizational hierarchy (Mesmer-magnus & Viswesvaran,
2005). If there is a possibility of retaliation, the staff's willingness to report the error will
decrease due to the cost implications (Miceli et al., 2009). This raise question if similar
repercussions would influence public servants in Malaysia to whistle blow.
Kennett et al (2010) studied on the external WI of 81 accounting majors on fraudulent
financial reporting given specified personal and social consequences. Empirical results
showed that the personal financial costs variable is negatively correlated with the WI and the
relationship is statistically significant. Another study by Fatoki (2013) investigated the
perception of 250 final year accounting students about whistleblowing in relation to the
impact of the strength of retaliation and materiality. The results indicated that retaliation is
negatively correlated with likelihood of WI. The stronger the strength of retaliation, the lesser
the intention to blow the whistle. A research by Elias and Farag (2015) examined how
retaliation affected accounting students’ perception whether an internal auditor will blow the
whistle. Their findings indicated that, under certain outcomes of retaliation, threat of
retaliation had a negative relationship with the likelihood of whistleblowing. Wortley (2014)
investigated the possibility to use fear of reprisals to determine whether public sector
employees in Australia will whistle blow. The result revealed that fear of reprisals weakened
their WI. Another study by Latan et al (2016) argued that individual variables such as personal
cost of reporting does affect WI of Indonesian public accountants. Findings displayed that the
perceived personal cost of reporting affects WI. Overall, there seems to be several evidences
indicating retaliation affect the individual’s whistleblowing intention. Most of the findings
showed negative relationship between the outcomes of retaliation and the whistleblowing
intention. This indicates that, people will tend to keep silent and not whistle blow if there is a
threat of retaliation of their actions. In other words, they would not have an intention to
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whistle blow because they are fear of retaliation. The evidences presented in this section
suggests that, the public servants’ whistle blowing intention will be affected by the fear of
retaliation.
Research Framework
Figure 1 below shows the theoretical framework of this study. The framework illustrates
the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables of this
study. The independent variables of this study are the elements from Moral Intensity Model
(Magnitude of Consequences (MC), Social Consensus (SC) and Proximity (PX)) with an
additional variable Fear of Retaliation (FR). Meanwhile, the dependent variables are
whistleblowing intention (WI). This framework represents the factors affecting WI of KBS
employees.
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework
Hypothesis Development
While not extensively researched, evidence supports the notion that the dimensions of
moral intensity are related to individual’s intentions to blow the whistle. In particular, when
describing the ethical situation in which the whistleblowing takes place, moral intensity has
been identified as playing a key role in reporting the misconduct (Culiberg & Mihelic, 2017).
For example moral intensity affects the moral intention of accountants to report questionable
earnings management practices (Shawyer, 2011).
According to Chen and Lai (2014), the intention to blow the whistle rose when the MC
was high. Singer et al (1998) also found that the MC was related to WI. It was also supported
by Mesmer-magnus and Viswesvaran (2005) when their study also found that the seriousness
of the wrongdoing was related to WI. In addition, the consequences of wrongdoings was
found to be as a predictive variable of WI in Malaysian Rubber Board (Salleh and Yunus, 2015).
Several studies have been made on the relationship of MC and WI. However, most of them
were not from the public officers’ perception. Therefore, for my study it is hypothesized that:
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H1: There is a significant relationship between Magnitude of Consequences and the
Whistleblowing Intention among KBS employees
Even though moral intensity was generally correlated with WI et al (2014) found that
social consensus had no significant influence on whistleblowing intention. In an analysis of WI
among accounting students, Kennett, Downs, and Durler (2010) found that the approval of
peers to blow the whistle is statistically significant variables affecting WI. Generally, social
consensus was found associated with ethical decision making by Bateman and Valentine
(2013). The ethical environment of an organization and its leadership plays a major role in
guiding the ethical awareness and judgement of its managers and employees that will
encourage all organizational employees to focus on “doing the right thing” (Johnson et al.,
2012). It explains that the social consensus in an organization will give a significant influence
towards whistleblowing intention. Again, there is a lack of study examining on the relationship
of social consensus and whistleblowing intention among public officers. Therefore, the
second hypothesis for my study is derived as follows
H2: There is a significant relationship between Social Consensus and the Whistleblowing
Intention among KBS employees
Study by Carlson et al (2016) examined the impact of three moral intensity dimensions
(concentration of effect, PX and probability of effect) on ethical decision making of senior
level college students. The results supported their hypothesis that PX of an individual and the
victim has positive relationship with perceived ethicality of the act involved. Another study
by Lincoln and Holmes (2011) investigated the relationship of five components of moral
intensity with moral awareness, moral judgment, and moral intention among students
attending a service academy. Empirical findings suggested that PX has moderate relationship
to moral intention. The study by Wang et al (2016) proposed a model to study the effect of
moral intensity on intention of employee to report system bugs. Based on survey data
collected from 173 software engineers, results revealed that PX to victims indirectly
influences intentions of bad news reporting through morality judgment. Research by Mencl
and May (2009) explored the effect of MC and different types of PX (social, psychological, and
physical) on the ethical decision-making process of human resource professionals. Findings
exhibited that PX did not influence ethical decision making. Therefore, the third hypothesis
for my study is derived as follows
H3: There is a significant relationship between Proximity and the Whistleblowing Intention
among KBS employees.
Kennett et al (2010) studied on the external WI of 81 accounting majors on fraudulent
financial reporting given specified personal and social consequences. Empirical results
showed that the personal financial costs variable is negatively correlated with the WI and the
relationship is statistically significant. Another study by Fatoki (2013) investigated the
perception of 250 final year accounting students about whistleblowing in relation to the
impact of the strength of retaliation and materiality. The results indicated that retaliation is
negatively correlated with likelihood of WI. The stronger the strength of retaliation, the lesser
the intention to blow the whistle. A research done by Elias and Farag (2015) examined how
retaliation affect the accounting students’ perception whether an internal auditor will blow
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the whistle. Their findings indicated that, under certain outcomes of retaliation, threat of
retaliation had a negative relationship with the likelihood of whistleblowing. Study by Wortley
(2014) investigated the possibility to use fear of reprisals to determine whether public sector
employees in Australia will whistle blow. The result revealed that fear of reprisals weakened
their WI. Another study by Latan et al (2016) argued that individual variables such as personal
cost of reporting affect WI of Indonesian public accountants. Findings displayed that the
perceived personal cost of reporting affect WI. Therefore, the fourth hypothesis for my study
derived as follows
H4: There is a significant relationship between Fear of Retaliation and the Whistleblowing
Intention among KBS employees.
Research Methodology
Research Design
The study aimed to investigate the factors affecting Whistleblowing among Ministry Youth
and Sports employees namely Magnitude of Consequences (MC), Social Consensus (SC),
Proximity (PX) and Fear of Retaliation (FR). The study is of quantitative research which collects
primary data using self-administered survey questionnaire.
This study is a cross-sectional type of study since data collection are carried out once to
conclude for the population at a specified time. Moreover, a cross-sectional survey is
recommended for studies that aimed to describe behaviour or attitudes of an individual
(Mathers et al., 2009). Hence, this study analysing employees’ perspective towards
whistleblowing is fit to use cross-sectional data collection method. Ministry Youth and Sports
employees are the unit of analysis of the study.
Sampling Process
Population. The target population for the study is public officers who are currently
working in Ministry Youth and Sports (KBS). KBS was selected because the issues that recently
occurred in the ministry shows that, their initiatives including providing a clear internal
reporting channels in order to get the officers to whistle-blow any wrongdoing is not wholly
effective
Sample size. According to the directory staff of as per shown on the KBS website (Sept
2019), there are 542 staffs in 2019. However, only a total of 350 emails of KBS staffs were
provided and available in the website. Therefore, a total of 350 sets of questionnaires were
distributed via email. According to Parveen and Showkat (2017), this approach is feasible
since the respondents comprise heterogeneous and widely scattered groups of people. In this
case, the target group for this study were located differently around Malaysia. Self-
completion Surveys via mail, email, the internet or SMS are generally the least expensive,
particularly for a widespread sample (Megel & Heermann, 1994).
Sampling technique. Simple random sampling techniques were used to choose the
respondents whereby the employees were randomly selected. According to Sekaran and
Bougie (2013), this technique is a type of sampling design that requires all elements in the
population having a known and equal opportunity to be selected as subjects. This sampling is
suitable for this study because the objective of this study is to determine the factors that
influence the whistleblowing intention among KBS employees. The technique can be applied
to this study as there is no possibility of selection bias at the position level or any specific
section of the KBS where the unit of analysis for this study represents every level the
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organization. This is because whistleblowing practice is all employees’ responsibilities not
only at a specific level.
Data Collection Method
Miceli et al ( cited in Salleh & Yunus, 2015) provided that surveys are a common method to
collect primary data for Whistleblowing studies. A questionnaire survey was utilised as
the main data collection tool in this study. The questionnaire consists of six parts. The first
part of the questionnaire asked on the respondents’ demographics such as age, sex, ethnicity,
marital status, work experience and current position. The second part sought to identify the
level of their whistleblowing intention if they are aware of an illegal, immoral and illegitimate
practice in the organization. The third part of the questionnaire is to measure how serious
they think of the example of wrongdoings provided in the questionnaires. This is to examine
the effect of the magnitude of consequences on the whistleblowing intention. The fourth,
fifth and sixth part is to measure the extent of agreement on a statement related to the
variables of Social Consensus, proximity and fear of retaliation. The measurement of
whistleblowing intention, magnitude of consequences, social consensus, proximity and fear
of retaliation are explained below.
Variable Measurement
The Independent Variables (IV) of the research study consists of Magnitude of Consequences
(MC), Social Consensus (SC), Proximity (PX) and Fear of Retaliation (FR). These variables are
hypothesized to affect the Dependent Variables (DV), Whistleblowing Intention (WI). There
are various definitions given by different researchers for each variable. Still, the definition of
each variable for this study are provided below.
Dependent Variable
Whistleblowing Intention (WI). WI is the probability (willingness) that an individual will
exhibit whistleblowing behaviour (Chen & Lai, 2014). WI was measured by using the item of
the probability of the respondent will engage in the action which is to whistle blow. The three
items of WI incurred in the questionnaire was adapted from Chen and Lai (2014). Specifically,
it sought to identify how likely or unlikely the respondent would be to blow the whistle if they
are aware of an illegal, immoral or illegitimate practice in the organization. It was also to
identify their actions towards the illegal practice in the organisations. The items were “I will
whistle blow”, “I will not ignore the wrongdoings” and “I will not keep silent”. The items were
measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ‘very unlikely’ to 5 ‘very likely’ (Chiu,
2002).
Independent variables
Magnitude of consequences (MC). MC is the extent of the consequences associate with a
moral issue for example seriousness of wrongdoings (Sampaio & Sobral, 2013). MC was
measured by using four items which were adapted from (Baird et al., 2016). These scales
require respondents to read a series of scenario-based statements and evaluate these
statements using 5-point scale describe how serious will the scenario harm the organization.
The scenarios were “Falsifying financial statements to obtain a bank loan”, “Under-reporting
sales to pay less on taxes”, “Stealing cash from the company by diverting a portion of the
company sales receipt for yourself” and “Receiving kickbacks (bribe) from the biggest supplier
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for purchases made”. This variable used a 5-point Likert scale to evaluate the seriousness
ranging from 1 ‘not serious at all’ to 5 extremely serious.
Social consensus (SC). SC is the degree of social acceptance that a given act is good or
evil (Musbah et al., 2014). SC construct was measured using five-item questionnaire adopted
from (Trongmateerut and Sweeney, 2013). The items were “My peer would strongly approve
of my whistleblowing act”, “Most people who are important to me think that I should whistle-
blow”, “Most people whose opinion I value would approve of my decision to whistle-blow”,
“If people close to me witness any wrongdoings, they will whistle-blow and people close to
me will strongly approve on my decision to whistle-blow”. Respondents were asked to agree
or disagree on a statement that describe the social acceptance of the social towards the
whistleblowing act. It was to measure extent of agreement of the respondents on the effects
of social consensus towards whistleblowing intentions. The respondents will select one of the
five options using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree.
Proximity (PX). PX is the closeness of an individual to the victim in a situation (Carlson
et al., 2009). From the definition of proximity, it is measured to examine the agreeableness
of the respondents on the given statement. The statement was about the whistleblowing
intention affected by the closeness of the victim with the respondent. There were three items
constructed for proximity in the questionnaire. The items were “I will whistle-blow if the
victim of an illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices in an organization is my close friend”, “I
feel sad for the victim of an illegal, immoral or illegitimate practice in an organization” and “I
empathize with the victim of an illegal, immoral or illegitimate practice in an organization”.
The measurement of each item was using the used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1
‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree’.
Fear of retaliation (FR). FR is the undesirable actions taken against the whistle-
blowers in direct response to the whistleblowing (who reported wrongdoing internally or
externally) (Rehg et al., 2008). This variable was measured using 5-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree’ inclusive of 5 items. The items in the
questionnaire are the factors that might lead to the decision of not whistleblowing. The items
were “I am afraid the wrongdoer would take action against me”, “I am afraid the organization
would take action against me”, “I do not want to get anyone into trouble”, “I do not want to
embarrass the organization” and “It would have been too stressful to report it”. From the
items, the respondents will either strongly disagree, disagree, being neutral, agree or strongly
agree to the statement on the reason why they will not whistle-blow. From the measurement,
it will conclude that whether the decision to whistle blow is influenced by the retaliation that
might occur.
Findings
Pilot Test
A pilot test from 30 respondents was conducted prior to the final distribution of the
questionnaire survey. Instead of pilot testing on KBS employees, the survey was distributed
to public servants from different ministries and government agencies. There is no indication
of bias as they represent the public officers from different government agencies and
ministries in Malaysia. Reliability, normality and multicollinearity tests were carried out and
the result of the pilot test showed that the data is reliable and is normally distributed. Hence,
the set of questionnaire survey is valid and suitable for data collection.
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Descriptive Analysis
Demographic profile of respondents. 350 sets of questionnaire survey were distributed
and self-administered and 117 sets managed to be collected, achieving a response rate of
33%. The demographic profile of 117 respondents (including gender, age, ethnicity, marital
status, experienced and current position) are described in the following section.
From the total number of 117 respondents, males comprised of 35.9% while the female
respondents comprised of 64.1%. Furthermore, majority of the respondents are from the age
group of 30 and above and most of them are between the age of 30 to 39 years old. Although
majority (82.05%) of the respondents are Malays, there is a fair number of respondents from
different ethnicities. There are 69.23% of the respondents who are married, while the
remaining 30.77% are single, in a relationship and divorced. Majority of the respondents with
a percentage of 86.32% that have more than 5 years of working experience, while 13.68%
have not more than 5 years of working experience. Additionally, majority of the respondents
in the Ministry Youth and Sports hold position with grade 41 and accounted for 58.97% of the
sample.
Central tendencies measurement. Table 1 lists out the construct’s Cronbach’s alpha.
All the alpha values exceed 0.7, except WI having an alpha value of 0.632. However, the data
is still reliable as Churchill (1979) stated that an alpha value of 0.6 is also acceptable.
Specifically, the Cronbach’s alpha for MC, SC, PX and FR achieved higher than 80% which
means the reliability of data is very good.
Table 1
Reliability Test
Variables
Constructs
Number of Items
Cronbach’s alpha
value
DV
Whistleblowing Intention
3
0.632
IV1
Magnitude of Consequences
5
0.833
IV2
Social Consensus
5
0.930
IV3
Proximity
3
0.803
IV4
Fear of Retaliation
5
0.885
Table 2 lists the Pearson correlation of all variables. The SC is found to have a positive
and moderate correlation, PX shows a positive and low correlation, MC shows a positive and
negligible correlation and FR shows negative and negligible correlation. Therefore, there are
no multicollinearity problem involved among all IVs.
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Table 2
Pearson Correlation Coefficient Matrix
Variables
Whistleblowing
Intention
Magnitude of
Consequences
Social
Consensus
Proximity
Fear of
Retaliation
Whistleblowing
Intention
1
Magnitude of
Consequences
0.228*
1
.013
Social
Consensus
0.549**
0.179
1
.000
.053
Proximity
0.396**
0.430**
0.409**
1
.000
.000
.000
Fear of
Retaliation
-0.027
0.045
-0.014
0.124
1
.774
.627
.877
.183
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
Discussions of Major Findings
As the general rule applies, when p-value <0.05, Hx is accepted. The hypothesis is, hence,
supported.
Table 3
Summary of Findings
Hypothesis
Standardized
Coefficients
Sig
Result
H1
There is a significant relationship
between Magnitude of Consequences
and Whistleblowing Intention
0.109
0.199
Reject
H2
There is a significant relationship
between Social Consensus and
Whistleblowing Intention
0.429
0.000
Accept
H3
There is a significant relationship
between Proximity and Whistleblowing
Intention
0.211
0.023
Accept
H4
There is a significant relationship
between Fear of Retaliation and
Whistleblowing Intention
-0.071
0.357
Reject
Magnitude of consequences (MC). From the Table 3, p-value for the relationship
between MC and WI is 0.199 which is more than 0.05. Thus, the relationship between MC and
WI is not significant. This result indicates that, from KBS staffs’ perceptions, MC is not a factor
of their action on WI. Nevertheless, this result also contradicts with findings of Salleh and
Yunus (2015) that MC has a significant influence with on WI. A study conducted on Malaysian
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Rubber Board employees’ perception revealed that MC had a positive and strong significant
effect on the whistleblowing intention (Salleh & Yunus, 2015).
There were also several studies such as Valentine and Godkin (2019); Wang et al (2016);
Arnold et al (2013) conducted using the same factors found that the MC is significantly related
to the whistleblowing intention. Those studies were conducted from the perceptions of
auditors and students. Auditors and students who are the potential whistle-blowers will take
materiality into consideration before pursuing with any action. On the other hand, KBS
employees will not take the seriousness of the wrongdoings into their consideration before
they intent to whistle blow. Perhaps this is due to the lack of awareness among the staffs on
how far the wrongdoing would endanger people’s lives and risk the Government to bare the
losses.
Social consensus (SC). The SC has a significant relationship with WI. Past studies
examining the same hypothesis also generates similar findings. For example, (Shawver and
Clements, 2011; Sweeney and Costello, 2009; Ballantine, 2002). The results from this study
suggests that KBS employees often consider the opinion of people surrounding them when
intending to whistle blow. Generally, these are the important people whose opinions are
valued by the KBS employees such as family and friends. When these individuals agree with
the employees and think that they should whistle blow, the employees will be inclined to
judge whistleblowing as a moral and ethical action, and thus the WI of the employees also
increases.
In contrast, if the society does not agree with the whistleblowing act, the employees
will feel ambiguous and demotivated, then reducing the WI. This result explains how the
intention of KBS staffs to whistle-blow are influenced by people that surround them. It seems
possible that these results are due to their responsibilities as a public servant that involves
Government authorities. Due to that, they may rely on other peoples’ expectations to
rationalize their action.
Proximity (PX). The significant relationship between PX and WI is empirically supported
with p-value equals to 0.023. This outcome is in line with the findings of a few past researches
including Lincoln and Holmes (2011); Carlson et al (2009); Shawver and Clements (2011) that
PX affects the WI among KBS employees. If the employees have close and intimate
relationship with the victim of a wrongdoing, the probability of whistleblowing is greater.
People usually show more empathy or care for people who are physically, psychologically and
culturally close to them such as family and friends rather than strangers who are distant.
The employees may have stronger feeling of empathy and pity if people close to them
are adversely impacted by a wrongdoing. There is a higher tendency to whistle blow since the
victim of a wrongdoing is someone they care about. A possible explanation for this result may
due to the KBS staffs are concern on victims of wrongdoings and they tend to take action if
the victims are close to them to help the victims get their rights.
Fear of retaliation (FR). The results revealed that FR and WI is insignificantly
correlated since the p-value is 0.357. This finding opposes results of similar past studies such
as Kennett et. al (2011); Elias and Farag (2015); Fatoki (2013); Cassematis and Wortley (2013);
Latan et al (2016) concluded that FR negatively correlates with WI. However, retaliation does
not necessarily result in a weaker intention of whistleblowing. According to Miceli and Near
(1985), whistle-blowers will blow the whistle if they believe that reporting the wrongdoing
will bring positive impact, even though they might be suffering from retaliation. The result
indicates that the KBS employees are still willing to whistle blow if the societal benefits can
compensate their personal cost of whistleblowing.
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Furthermore, whistle-blowers will choose to whistle blow when there is no other
alternative available (Brown, 2008). Under such circumstances, it is possible that employees
will intend to whistle blow. In fact, retaliations appear to be more encouraging of external
whistleblowing than deterring whistleblowing (Rehg et al., 2008). This finding expresses
highly of the moral compass of the respondents, so it appears to be a “good news” to a certain
extent. It is because when the whistleblowing intention of the KBS staffs is not influence by
the fear of retaliation, there is still a possibility for the staffs to report any wrongdoings even
though they might suffer from retaliation such as termination, decrease in pay and other
penalties.
Conclusion
Implications of the Study
Theoretical implication. This study has identified some factors that have significant
relationship with whistleblowing intention. SC and PX which are the constructs under the
Moral Intensity Model have been empirically proven that there is significant predictor of WI.
However, MC that is also constructed under Moral Intensity Model together with FR, another
situational variable added into this conceptual framework, are found insignificantly
associated with WI.
Furthermore, this study contributes in reducing the research dearth of using the
theoretical model in studying whistleblowing issue. With an adjusted R-square of 0.352, this
research, studying three (3) constructs from the Moral Intensity Model, proves that the model
is an appropriate theoretical model used to study ethical issue such as whistleblowing
intention.
This study adds to the scarcity of the whistleblowing researchers in the Malaysian public
sector specifically in the context of employees from the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Related
researches have been repeatedly conducted on accounting professionals, working adults and
students. This study is beneficial and constructive to future researchers who wish to explore
the Malaysian public sector employees’ whistleblowing issue in depth.
Managerial implication. SC is found to be the factor that has the strongest
relationship with WI among the four IVs studied, represented by a correlation coefficient of
0.549. This suggests that support and agreement from the co-workers and acquaintances
among the organisation to whistle blow really has a significant effect on whistleblowing
intention (WI). This result showed that KBS staffs are often consider the opinion of people
surrounding them when intending to whistle blow. In this case, the co-workers who works in
the organizations even the management plays and important role to encourage the staffs to
bravely voice out or whistle blow on any misconduct. For the management, they might need
to strengthen the whistle blowing protection towards the potential whistle-blower and
acknowledge the staffs on the protection provided. It is to ensure them and support them to
whistle blow. In addition, the awareness on whistle blowing and the importance of the action
need to be widened to the public because it will help government in general to detect more
fraud happening in Malaysian’s public or private organizations. Particularly, the idea that
whistleblowing is an ethical behaviour and should be instilled into their minds. Therefore,
they will agree and provide support when an individual face a whistleblowing dilemma.
PX is also one of the determinants of WI among KBS employees. The employees should
know the possibility that a wrongdoing may also have an impact on people who they
perceived as close to them. Otherwise, they do not see a reason to whistle blow. When they
are able to foresee the potential victims of a wrongdoing, especially when the wrongdoing
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involves people whom he or she has a close relationship with, it will encourage the employees
to whistle blow. Encouraging them to whistle blow will give a big impact on the KBS
organization to deter wrongdoing activity since they are the direct staff of the company.
Fraud prevention will have more benefits to an organization as this is a pro-active
measure and fraud prevention will avoid losses. Fraud detection is reactive where the fraud
and thus, losses have actually occurred. In addition, the risk of fraud and corruption can be
minimized as the widespread of occurrence of such practices can be avoided within the
organization. Besides that, it is possible to avoid a negative perception of the company and
the public sectors as a whole when staff are made aware of the right channels inside the
organization to whistle blow. It keeps whistle-blowers from disclosing the wrongdoings to the
outside parties.
The main contribution of this study is it produced staff views and opinions on how to
improve or help the whistleblowing strategy and implementation approach for KBS to achieve
its goals. Nevertheless, the shortcoming of this study is that it is based solely on KBS. This
study is based on the perception of whistleblowing intention factors of the public sector
officers with the sample size that focused on the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Therefore, it
cannot be generalised to the whole population of public servants in Malaysia. However, this
study can be used by the ministry to identify other factors that influence the weakness of
whistleblowing practices that have been formulated and practiced within the ministry. From
this study, the ministry may need to find more initiatives to improve the awareness among
the staff on the importance whistleblowing practices.
Limitations of the Study
Although this study has contributed theoretically and practically, the inherent limitations
restrict its applicability in every whistleblowing issue, one of the main limitations of the study
is that, due to the time constraints on completing this study, it is based on a single case study
performed at the Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS). This study is based on the intention to
whistle blow and this study's sample size does not have sufficient data to support this
research's conclusiveness. Thus, any future researches should include other public sector
organizations in the study and use a much bigger sample.
Furthermore, in the sense of the Malaysian public sector, there is inadequate
literatures associating the intention to whistle-blow. Trend of past researches seems to agree
with this as it is difficult to find relevant resources. Besides that, due to the presence of
sensitive issues in whistleblowing, the essence of this study itself is a constraint, so the
respondents may not answer the questions honestly.
In addition, this study is a cross-sectional type of study. The collection of data is conducted at
one particular period of time and because of this, it is unable to measure the changes in KBS
employees’ perception over the time.
Lastly, the inherent limitation is to include all possible variables that influence whistleblowing
intention. King, Near and Miceli (as cited in Ahmad et al., 2012) acknowledge that
whistleblowing is a function of many individual, organizational, demographic and situational
variables. Yet, the study explored only on certain situational variables and failed to provide a
more complement study of factors affecting whistleblowing intention.
Yet, the limitations mentioned above are well-acknowledge and do not affect the significance
of the findings presented earlier. This section serves as a reference for future researchers who
wish to further explore the whistleblowing issue in another context.
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Recommendations for Future Research
Future researchers may invite public servants from a greater number of the public sector
organizations to participate in a similar study. The target respondents could expand from
other types of Malaysian public sector organizations such as federal agencies, state
government, statutory bodies and local authority or enforcement agency to a wider group.
Through creating the National Integrity Plan (2008) and the Malaysian Whistleblowing
Protection Act (WPA) 2010, this would support the succession plan of the Malaysian
government to improve ethics and integrity within the public sector.
In addition, future research may also include a mixed-method approach by
incorporating survey research and focus group interviews to gain a better understanding of
the potential relationships. The survey and interviews researches research can be done from
different group of position levels of the respondents in the organisations. This is because,
different group of respondents possess different personal responsibilities and bear different
personal costs of whistleblowing, which will vary the propensity of whistleblowing (Brennan
& Kelly, 2006).
A longitudinal study would be a better approach to address the changes in perception
over the time. For example, studying the intention of the employees possibly since their
commencement date of getting employed until the current research date being carried out.
Also, participants’ response could be collected more than once, before observing any
wrongdoing and after observation. The differences exist between non-reporting observers
and whistle-blowers would then reveal what influences the decision of whistleblowing.
Lastly, although there is lack of studies that explore all factors that play a role in
whistleblowing intention, further studies can still be performed by examining the potential
impacts of individual variables, situational variables and organizational variables on the
whistleblowing intention of public servants.
For stronger measurement of variable, more construct can be developed to strengthen
the reliability of the data collected using the questionnaire survey.
The study has contributed by exploring motivators of whistleblowing intention. It is
empirically evident that social consensus and proximity have significant influence on KBS
employees’ intention of whistleblowing. However, the magnitude of consequences and fear
of retaliation might not have significant influence on their whistleblowing propensity.
The purpose of this study is to examine whistleblowing intention factors in Malaysia's
public sector, especially in the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Findings from this research did
not support two theoretical associations between magnitude of consequences and fear of
retaliation and whistleblowing intention, while in this case study organizations are used as an
independent variable of whistleblowing intention two other variables that are social
consensus and proximity. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring
motivators of whistleblowing intention. It is empirically evident that social consensus and
proximity have significant influence on KBS employees’ intention of whistleblowing. However,
magnitude of consequences and fear of retaliation might not have significant influence on
their whistleblowing propensity.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to express their gratitute to the Minister of Higher Education for
Accounting Research Institute HICoE research funding (Ref: 600-RMC/DANA 5/3/BESTARI (TD)
(010/2022)), Faculty of Accountancy and Universiti Teknologi MARA for all supports and
resources.
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