Factors influencing whistleblowing intention in public sector: evidence from northern region of Malaysia / Muhammad Zairi Zul

The public sector has always been associated with issues of corruption, integrity, and other unethical misconduct because it is the executive body that manages and spends public funds. Malaysia is ranked 61st out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2022, with a score of 47 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). This illustrates that the public sector in Malaysia is not doing enough to eradicate malpractice and corruption effectively. The Malaysian government has taken the initiative to combat this issue through the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP), whose ultimate vision is to create a corrupt-free nation. This plan includes whistleblowing as a strategy to eliminate corruption and unethical conduct. Basically, whistleblowing is the act of disclosing unethical behaviour that takes place within the organization. Whistleblowing is a risky behaviour that involves complex decisionmaking processes; therefore, there are several factors that will help a person solve this dilemma. There is a lack of empirical studies about how whistleblowing can be fostered among public sector employees outside the West, such as in Malaysia. Thus, this research aims to determine the factors influencing whistleblowing intentions among public sector employees in the northern region of Malaysia. For that purpose, this study utilized the Theory of Prosocial Behaviour, which includes contextual determinants (policy and procedure, training, responsiveness of management, reporting channel, financial reward, seriousness level of wrongdoing) and individual determinants (knowledge, trust) as independent variables, gender as a moderating variable, and whistleblowing intention as the dependent variable. The data was collected from 123 public sector employees in the northern region of Malaysia (Perlis, Kedah, and Penang) from various ministries via an online survey questionnaire and analysed by Partial Least Squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS software. This study found that there is a significant relationship between all independent variables and whistleblowing intention, except for the responsiveness of management. Additionally, gender was found only to be significant in moderating the relationship between reporting channels, seriousness level of wrongdoing, knowledge, and whistleblowing intention. The findings of this study suggested that holistic strategic planning is needed for the Public Service Department (PSD) and public sector management to efficiently foster whistleblowing among public sector employees to minimize corruption and unethical conduct as well as achieve the objectives of NACP and improve CPI performance.