The influence of country of origin and espoused national culture on whistleblowing behavior

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJAIM-07-2020-0119
• Published date: 14 December 2020
• Date: 14 December 2020
• Pages: 228-246
• Subject Matter: Accounting & finance,Accounting/accountancy,Accounting methods/systems
• Author: Richard G. Brody,Gaurav Gupta,Michael Turner

The inf‌luence of country of origin

and espoused national culture on

whistleblowing behavior

Richard G. Brody

Anderson School of Management, University of New Mexico,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Gaurav Gupta

Department of Accountancy and Business Law, Cameron School of Business,

University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, and

Michael C. Turner

Anderson School of Management, University of New Mexico,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine factors motivating an individual to report a

whistleblowing scenario to various stakeholders within a company. This paper examines how four factors

(country of origin and the espoused nationalcultures of masculinity, collectivism and uncertainty avoidance)

inf‌luence the level of responsibility toward three stakeholders at different levels of hierarchy in an

organization.

Design/methodology/approach –Using a case-based approach, this study collects data from 432

accounting students from two different countries. Using regression analysis on the pooled data, this paper

provides evidence on how accounting students would behave when facing a whistleblowing situation

involvingtheir immediate supervisor.

Findings –This study f‌inds that country of origin and espoused national cultural values inf‌luence the

individual’sdecision regarding whom to blow the whistle.

Originality/value –The study has improved upon the methodologicaldef‌iciencies of previous studies that

rely on Hofstede’s (1980) cultural values in that the paper focuses on the espoused national culture at the

individuallevel.

Keywords India, US, Culture, Whistleblowing

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

A prerequisite to the successful implementation of a whistleblowing program is a proper

understanding of factors thatinf‌luence whistleblowing behaviors across different countries.

While there is extensive research on these factors in Western countries, international

accounting literature has very limited research in emerging nations. Our research f‌ills this

gap by examining espoused cultural factors that inf‌luence the whistleblowing behavior of

accounting students. Prior research is hindered by the methodological def‌iciency of

assuming that culture is homogenous across all individuals in a given nation. Taras et al.

(2010), in their analysis of almost 600 studies involving Hofstede’s (1980) cultural values,

concluded that researchers should not ignore within-group cultural variances and should

IJAIM

29,2

228

Received29 July 2020

Revised21 September 2020

Accepted14 October 2020

InternationalJournal of

Accounting& Information

Management

Vol.29 No. 2, 2021

pp. 228-246

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1834-7649

DOI 10.1108/IJAIM-07-2020-0119

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1834-7649.htm

not assume that all individuals within a particular nation share identical cultural beliefs.

Cieslewicz (2016,p. 94) notes:

For individual-level studies, using a nation-level score to represent the culture of all individuals in

a nation is problematic as it treats all participants from a nation as being culturally identical.

Furthermore, a nation’s culture is not static and may change over time, as suggested by

Ralston et al. (2006). These studiesemphasize the need for research-based on individual-level

cultural dimensions.

1.1 Global consequences of fraud

Since at least the 1980s, the business worldhas become increasingly globalized. Barriers are

vanishing and companiesnow transact business across country lines with ease and rapidity.

In general, this advance in the globalization of business is seen as a boon for the global

population. Globalizationhas helped lift millions of Indians and Chinese out of poverty (Coy

et al., 2014). Despite the increase in the global standard of living for many, new barriers to

globalization have been erected in the political and social arenas. Recently elected leaders

such as the US’President Donald Trump and the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson,

emerged victorious in their respective elections by emphasizing an overtly nationalistic

message. However, evenwith these threats to globalization, its upward trajectorycontinues,

particularly for developingcountries such as China and India (Milanovic, 2016). As observed

by Schuman (2018, p. 14):

The dramatic events of the past several weeks don’t show how weak the power pulling the world

together has become, but rather how many punches it can absorb without collapsing.

Thus, despite the occasionalpushback, the globalization of business marches on.

While the merits and demerits of globalization can be debated, one drawback is easily

identif‌iable. In an increasingly global business environment, negligent or fraudulent

business practices of large corporations can have harmful consequences that are both

contagious and far-reaching. No longer is the damage associated with ethical failures or

fraudulent acts of companies contained to the miscreant’s own country, but rather, due to

the interconnected nature of the globalbusiness environment, this damage can cause fallout

affecting many other nations.For example, in Brazil, an investigation known as “Lava Jato”

was launched in March 2014 in response to the Petrobras scandal.In this scandal, Petrobras

was believed to be accepting bribes from f‌irms in exchangefor contracts. After the dust had

settled, foreign corporations and even foreign leaders had been implicated in Lava Jato,

including Columbian President Juan Manuel Santos, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

and Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (Felter and Labrador, 2018). The reach of

this scandal has been immense. In South Africa, a corruption scandal involving the Indian-

born Gupta brothers has proved to haveconsequences in f‌irms of other nations. Due to this

South African scandal, the German business software giant SAP previously stated it was

forced to discipline some of its employees and make major changes to its sales processes

(Meyer, 2017). Due to the global village of the business environment, fraudulent acts and

ethical failures may have profound consequences.Therefore, it is in the interest of the global

community not only to guard against corporate failures in their own country but also to

reduce the threat of business fraud worldwide.

Whistleblowingrepresents an important deterrent to combat fraud and corruption(Nayir

and Herzig, 2012). Whistleblowingis def‌ined as:

Espoused

national

culture

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