Putting measures in place to prevent wrongdoing in organizations is important, but detecting and correcting wrongdoing is just as vital. Employees who observe wrongdoing should therefore be encouraged to respond in a manner that supports corrective action. This paper examines the influence of the ethical culture of organizations on employee responses to observed wrongdoing. The findings show that, contrary to transparency and congruency of management, many other dimensions of ethical culture were negatively related to inaction and external whistleblowing and positively related to direct interven-tion, reporting to management and calling an ethics hotline. The model used for ethical culture explained 27.5% of intended responses by employees.

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Erasmus Research Institute of Management
hdl.handle.net/1765/16600
ERIM Report Series Research in Management
ERIM report series research in management Erasmus Research Institute of Management
Erasmus Research Institute of Management

Kaptein, M. (2009). From Inaction to External Whistleblowing: The Influence of the Ethical Culture of Organizations on Employee Responses to Observed Wrongdoing (No. ERS-2009-047-ORG). ERIM report series research in management Erasmus Research Institute of Management. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/16600