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Journal of Business Ethics

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01.02.2013

The Influence of Subjective Norms on Whistle-Blowing: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

verfasst von: Pailin Trongmateerut, John T. Sweeney

Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics | Ausgabe 3/2013

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Abstract

This research consists of two studies with interrelated objectives. The purpose of the first study is to develop and validate scales measuring whistle-blowing subjective norms, attitudes, and intentions. The objective of the second study is to test a model of whistle-blowing intentions, motivated by the theory of reasoned action, across two contrasting cultures: the collectivist Thai and the individualistic American. To achieve cross-cultural comparisons, we first perform measurement and structural invariance tests. Tests of latent mean differences lend support for our prediction that individuals in the collectivist Thai culture have higher means on subjective norms, attitudes, and intentions for whistle-blowing than members of the individualist American culture. Our models indicate that subjective norms for whistle-blowing, even though significantly different for American and Thai participants, have a direct effect on whistle-blowing attitudes as well as direct and indirect effects on reporting intentions for both subject groups. Compared to American subjects, the whistle-blowing intentions of Thai participants are more strongly influenced by subjective norms for whistle-blowing.

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We utilize the commonly accepted definition of whistle-blowing offered by Near and Miceli (1985, p. 4): “the disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral, or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action.”

The United States Congress passed the “Corporate Criminal Fraud Accountability Act” in July of 2002, generally referred to as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Act) (2002). The Act contained provisions (Sects. 301 & 806) specifically designed to promote whistle-blowing and to provide protection from retaliatory actions directed at employee whistle-blowers.

Cialdini and Trost (1998) identified four categories of social norms: descriptive norms, injunctive norms, subjective norms, and personal norms. The present study focuses on subjective norms because the intention to be a whistle-blower is situation-specific and relatively novel to respondents, and because in their meta-analysis of whistle-blowing research, Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005, p. 52) contend that “whistleblowing behavior may be heavily governed by subjective norms.”

Gernon (1993) noted that some of these differences may be explained by individualism, a point Schultz et al. (1993) did not address.

Near et al. (2004) provide evidence that different types of wrongdoing can result in different whistle-blowing processes. Stealing, safety problems, waste, and discrimination were less likely to be reported relative to mismanagement, sexual harassment, and legal violations.

Park et al. (2005) used these items and reported the scale alpha for intention items and attitudes items at 0.72 and 0.80, respectively.

The varimax solution is not recommended when the construct may contain a general overall factor since varimax is designed to eliminate general factors (Comrey and Lee 1992; Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). The varimax is applicable for TRA because of its well-theorized and validated factors.

Although the cross loading of .456 for SN3 with the attitude construct is above the commonly used cutoff of .4, the factor structure decision should not be driven principally by the magnitude of factor loadings, but instead should be guided by theory and interpretability (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). The authors reviewed and verified that item SN3 has face validity, and is meaningful for the subjective norms construct.

We did not find differences between the responses of Thai female and male participants to the four whistle-blowing behavioral intention items.

Using mean and covariance structure allows the latent mean differences to be tested.

From the structural invariance test in Table 4, the coefficients of subjective norms and attitude for the Thai subjects are higher than those for the American subjects (fixed at zero), at .871 and .201, respectively. The indirect effect of subjective norms via attitude is also significantly higher (coefficient = .318) for the Thai group relative to the American group.

We examined the skewness and kurtosis of the factor items for the American sample. All factors were within the recommended kurtosis limit of < 2.0, the skewness limit of < .7 (West et al. 1995), and had a standard deviation under 1.8. Collectively, these results indicate that violations of normality are not a concern.

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Titel: The Influence of Subjective Norms on Whistle-Blowing: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
verfasst von: Pailin Trongmateerut
John T. Sweeney
Publikationsdatum: 01.02.2013
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics / Ausgabe 3/2013
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1270-1

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