The Whistleblowing Intentions of Turkish Employees

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the likelihood to blow the whistle on various kinds of organisational wrongdoing and the preferred whistleblowing channels among a sample of Turkish employees. Moreover, it aimed to investigate the influence of socio-demographic variables, i.e., age, organisational tenure, gender, status in the organisation, and type of organisation, on whistleblowing intentions. Our results showed that Turkish employees’ intention to blow the whistle internally was higher than that for external whistleblowing. They had the intention of whistleblowing primarily of events perceived as serious fraud and behaviours causing harm to others. Those who intend to use internal channels to blow the whistle were more likely to be female, older and working in public sector. On the contrary, those who intend to use external channels for reporting were more likely to be younger, less tenured and working in private sector. Our findings contribute to the existing whistleblowing research by revealing a picture of the whistleblowing intentions and socio-demographic characteristics of potential whistle-blowers in a non-western country.

Keywords: whistleblowing; fraud; internal whistleblowing; external whistleblowing; Turkey.