This dissertation consists of three studies. The first study provides a review and synthesis of past accounting research regarding factors that influence whistleblowing. The second study is a content analysis to examine the variation of organizations’ internal whistleblowing policy, including both the content characteristics of the policy and the linguistic characteristics of the policy. In terms of the content characteristics of the whistleblowing policy, this study focuses on who is covered in the policy, where to report, employees’ responsibility, corporate investigation procedures, disciplinary action against the wrongdoer, and anti-retaliation policy. In terms of the linguistic characteristics of the internal whistleblowing policy, this study focuses on the types of pronouns, the language uncertainty of the policy, and the tone of the policy (positive or negative). Furthermore, the overlaps between the content characteristics and the linguistic characteristics are also identified. The third study is a 2 by 2 between-subjects experiment to investigate the best design of companies’ internal whistleblowing policy. By breaking the internal whistleblowing policy into the reporting policy (responsibility to report and reporting channel) and the anti-retaliation policy (protection against retaliation), the experiment manipulates the type of pronouns for the reporting policy (first-person pronoun reporting policy or third-person pronoun reporting policy) and type of pronouns for the anti-retaliation policy (first-person pronoun anti-retaliation policy or third-person pronoun anti-retaliation policy). Results suggest that first-person reporting policy is better than third-person reporting policy at encouraging reporting unethical behaviors and this is mediated by the language vividness effect.

The possibility to report misconduct at your workplace is fundamental in the public sector. Studies about employees who blow the whistle have been made before but not from the perspective of the manager and how they handle it and what kind of support they have. The meaning of this study is from a manager perspective, in this case school leaders, is to see what kind of support they have and what role the school leader has, if they are representing the teachers or the political administration. Based on different theories concerning whistleblowing and different kinds of official types and organizational models, this study intends to answer where school leaders see themselves in the borderland between working based on the Education Act and based on the Local Government Act and the economic rule that prevail. The study also deals with the power perspective based on the school leader’s role in the own organization’s hierarchy, both as the highest in command at its school unit and as subordinate to an administration/board/owner. In this study, seven school leaders and one person who is very familiar with how the administration works with issues concerning misconduct are interviewed. Based on the answers from those interviews, it has been possible to draw some conclusions and see several common denominates among the respondents, including that school leaders rely more on their own profession when it comes to problem management than using the administration’s/head office’s collective expertise. / Möjligheten att rapportera missförhållanden på sin arbetsplats är en grundläggande del i den offentliga verksamheten. Visselblåsning gjorda av medarbetare har varit föremål för studier tidigare men chefens perspektiv av att kunna hantera dem och stödet de får när det sker finns inte dokumenterat i samma utsträckning. Syftet är att utifrån ett chefsperspektiv, i detta fall skolledare, undersöka det stöd som finns och vilken roll som skolledare främst företräder, lärarkåren eller huvudmannen. Utifrån olika teorier som rör visselblåsning och olika typer av tjänstepersonstyper samt organisationsmodeller ämnar denna undersökning svara på vad skolledare ser sig själva som i gränslandet mellan att arbeta utifrån skollagen och utifrån kommunallagen och de ekonomiska regler som råder där. Undersökningen behandlar även maktperspektivet utifrån skolledarens roll i den egna organisationens hierarki, både som högst ansvarig på sin skolenhet och som underställd en förvaltning/nämnd eller styrelse/ägare. I denna undersökning intervjuas sju skolledare och en person som är insatt i hur förvaltningen arbetar med frågor som rör missförhållanden. Utifrån intervjuerna har det gått att dra slutsatser och se flera gemensamma nämnare hos respondenterna, bland annat att skolledare förlitar sig mer på den egna professionen när det kommer till problemhantering än att använda sig av förvaltningens/huvudkontorets samlade expertis.