| Summary: | Whistleblowing is a type of ethical decision-making behaviour, and it has been one ofthe positive outcome behaviours investigated in the ethical decision-making literature.The issue has garnered widespread attention since the collapse of global multinationalcompanies which lead to the passage of the renowned Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.Since then a vast amount of research has been conducted in the whistleblowing stream,though it is still predominantly taking place largely in western countries. Such studiesas have been undertaken in Asian countries neglect to consider how Malaysianrespondents might play their roles in undertaking this type of ethical decision-makingbehaviour. There have been arguments in the whistleblowing literature on whether the internalreporting of corporate wrongdoings should be considered as an internal whistleblowingact, and whether internal auditors should also be regarded as whistleblowers. Despitethe fact that internal auditors hold a unique position in their organisations to prevent,deter and detect corporate wrongdoings, the role of this profession in investigatingethical decision-making behaviour has been much neglected. Hence, there is littleresearch concerning internal auditors’ internal whistleblowing intentions in theliterature. The purpose of this study is to investigate internal auditors’ internalwhistleblowing intentions on corporate wrongdoings in Malaysia. Theoretically, the study explored individual’s prosocial behaviour theory andorganisational ethical climate theory to provide the general framework for predictinginternal auditors’ internal whistleblowing intentions. The model developed for thisstudy included four levels of factors that can influence an internal auditor’s internalwhistleblowing intentions: organisational, individual, situational and demographicfactors. The organisational factors are ethical climate, size of organisation and job level.The individual factors are ethical judgment, locus of control, and organisationalcommitment. The situational factors include seriousness of wrongdoing and status ofwrongdoer. The individual demographics include gender, age and tenure. This researchis the first to examine the effect of these four factors in the internal auditing professionin Malaysia
|
|---|
