Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008. / Prepared for: Dept. of Accounting. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 142-149.

M.A. / Whistleblowing can be defined as the disclosure by organisation members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organisations that may be able to effect action. There are various factors that influence the extent to which people would be prepared to blow the whistle. One of these factors is job satisfaction. The extent to which people are satisfied in their jobs influences the extent to which the whistle will be blown. However, the relationship between whistleblowing and job satisfaction has not been studied in great detail and not at all in a South African context. The nature of this relationship was explored among academic staff at a South African university by means of a quantitative study. It was decided to conduct the study at the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus (APK) of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) due to the degree of transformation that has taken place at this institution in recent years and thus being relevant regarding the issue of job satisfaction. The study involved investigating the circumstances under which academic staff would be prepared to blow the whistle, how far they would be prepared to go in terms of making use of various channels to report wrongdoing, the level of job satisfaction, as well as the relationship between job satisfaction and the responses of academic staff members to whistleblowing. Examination of the findings revealed that overall the academic staff of the University of Johannesburg are satisfied in their jobs and this correlated, to a small degree, with the furthest reporting of offences that are minor in nature. Overall, academic staff were more inclined to report wrongdoing internally. Academic staff who had been employed at the university for more than ten years as well as those who had no financial dependants were slightly more inclined to report wrongdoing than those who had been employed for a shorter period of time and had financial dependants.

The author examined whether contextual variables impact internal auditors' self-assessed likelihood of whistleblowing. The author synthesized a theoretical framework and developed research hypotheses that predict relationships between the self-assessed likelihood of whistleblowing and (1) magnitude of the consequences (2) channels of communication and (3) type of wrongdoing. To test these hypotheses, the author provided internal auditors (n=123) with a scenario and asked them to self-assess the likelihood of reporting evidence of a malfacation to their internal audit director even though their audit manager told them to ignore the wrongdoing.

This study examines the effects of reputation threats and anonymous whistle-blowing channels on Chief Audit Executives’ (CAEs) decisions to investigate whistle-blowing allegations. Participants were 94 CAEs and Deputy CAEs from publicly traded companies in the eastern half of the United States. Participants received whistle-blowing reports from either an anonymous or a non-anonymous source. In the high reputation threat condition the whistle-blowing report alleged that the wrongdoing was perpetrated by the exploitation of substantial weaknesses in internal controls that had been previously evaluated by external auditors and the internal audit function. The report in the lower threat condition alleged that the wrongdoing was accomplished by the circumvention of internal controls. Findings show that CAEs found anonymous whistle-blowing reports to be significantly less credible than non-anonymous reports. Although CAEs assessed lower credibility ratings for the reports alleging wrongdoing by the exploitation of substantial weaknesses in internal controls, they perceived greater personal and departmental responsibility in this condition. CAEs did not, however, perceive a significant reputation threat in either the Exploitation or Circumvention condition. Regardless of report source credibility, perceived reputation threat, or felt responsibility, CAEs’ resource allocation decisions consistently demonstrated a determination to thoroughly investigate the allegations of wrongdoing and uncover the truth.

Magister Theologiae - MTh / South Africa has progressed towards the realisation of an expressive culture of disclosure. Significant implementation and enforcement of the Protected Disclosures Act (26 of 2000 – hereafter referred to as “the Act” or “the PDA”) of South Africa has assisted to enforce the practices and protections provided in terms of the enabling laws and a societal culture which is receptive to and respectful of whistle blowers. This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the discourse on whistle blowing and the PDA from an ethical perspective, by means of using ethical concepts and analysing and discussing ethical dilemmas to provide a greater understanding of the real cases of whistle blowing that has occurred. Various aspects of whistle blowing are defined and reviewed with reference to Hans Jonas’s theory of an ethics of responsibility. One such aspect is the idea of collective responsibility as understood by Hans Jonas. Hans Jonas describes responsibility; in terms of the future responsibility present individuals have as a collective in order to ensure that the future human being are able to actively engage in the world with the same familiarities as is experienced today. This thesis will investigate, more specifically, the contribution made by Hans Jonas’s theory of responsibility in understanding the PDA in terms of an ethics of responsibility. The research question is posed and attempts to discuss and analyse whether Hans Jonas’s theory of an ethics of responsibility may help to identify, analyse and assess ethical issues embedded in the Protected Disclosures Act 26 of 2000.

No abstract available / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-80). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xii, 80 leaves, bound 29 cm

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on October 14, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Clarence Lo. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

The following essays explore ways in which the environment affects and is affected by organizations. The first essay, “Trust and the Division of Labor” considers that the trust environment of a firm helps determine its structure. Jointly with Stephan Meier and Patryk Perkowski, I show that exogenously imposed culture leads to variation in organizational form. An experiment primes trust using past performance from a pilot study and demonstrate that the level of trust within an organization affects division of labor and consequently organizational productivity. This evidence is consistent with a cross-country link between trust and the division of labor that we observe in data from the European Social Survey. A simple evolutionary game theoretic model is provided to illustrate the results. The second essay, Nobody Likes a Rat”, considers the impact of norms against certain types of behavior (in this case dishonesty) on behavior and organizational composition. Jointly with Ernesto Reuben, I investigate the intrinsic motivation of individuals to report, and thereby sanction, fellow group members who lie for personal gain. We find that when groups can select their members, individuals who report lies are generally shunned, even by groups where lying is absent. This facilitates the formation of dishonest groups where lying is prevalent and reporting is nonexistent. Finally, "NFTs, Volume, and Social Influence" observes how organizations and individuals use environmental cues like rankings and volume for sensemaking in a market with high quality uncertainty. Using observational data scraped from the top 1000 NFT collections I find a significant positive relationship between volume and price. Then, using plausibly exogneous variation in blockchain-level transaction fees, I fit an instrumental variable model which helps validate the causal interpretation that changes in volume lead to changes in price. I further add an experiment on NFTs to tease out two plausible channels through which volume could affect prices: user attention and normative social influence. The experiment finds strong evidence that being told an NFT is higher volume leads subjects to pay more attention to that NFT, whereas this has no significant effect on a subject's reported preference for the NFT. A second experimental treatment, in which subjects were told the NFTs were ordered by volume transaction costs, does observe a significant positive affect on reported preferences (as well as attention).