Future auditors’ propensity to blow the whistle: an investigation of auditing students’ propensity to blow the whistle when faced with an ethical dilemma

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between an individual’s level of moral reasoning, retaliation to whistle blowing, and their propensity to blow the whistle when faced with an ethical dilemma. To test this relationship 56 auditing students from Otago University were sampled using two versions of hypothetical whistle blowing scenarios and Welton, LaGrone and Davis (1994) moral reasoning instrument. The relationship between an individual’s level of moral reasoning and their propensity to blow the whistle was first examined. Retaliation was then implemented as a moderating variable. The result showed that a significant positive relationship existed between an individual’s moral reasoning level and propensity to blow. In addition to this, the results showed that retaliation was not acting as a moderating variable but as an independent variable. Furthermore, analysis showed that retaliation explained more of the variance in an individual’s propensity to blow the whistle than moral reasoning. Lastly, the results showed that regardless of an individual’s level of moral reasoning, if the strength of the retaliation was too strong then this prevented an individual from blowing the whistle. This finding is some what different to that of other studies as it showed that an individual level of moral reasoning may not play such as important role as the literature suggest. The implications for this finding are discussed in detail.