Beyond silence or compliance: The complexities of reporting a friend for misconduct

Abstract

Why do employees fail to report a friend's misconduct, and if they do not report, how else do they cope with this ethical dilemma? Through two field studies, we offer a more nuanced understanding of the range of alternative responses between the extremes of silence (ignoring misconduct) and compliance (reporting), and we illuminate the underlying reasons for these choices. Our results reveal that most employees are inclined to attempt to resolve a friend‐reporting situation themselves, and further, that many employees hesitate to report a friend's misconduct for ethical reasons. Specifically, we show how an ethic of care expressed through empathy for the transgressor may play an important and previously unexamined role in friend‐reporting decisions, drawing attention to the consideration of empathy as a key emotion that can reduce compliance with reporting programmes. In addition to these important contributions to the literature, practitioners should also find this study useful, as it suggests new approaches to help employees better align their choices with the compliance goals of the organisation without sacrificing their valued friendships.

Influence of Ethics Training on the Employees’ Information Security Compliance Intentions

“…As shown in Table 5, the p-value is at least 0.23; therefore, the sixth assumption of the one-way ANOVA (i.e., the homogeneity of variances) has been met. behavior changes [19,50,60]. The ndings of this study are signi cant to the IT and IS elds since they provided statistical evidence that ethics training signi cantly in uences employees' ISP compliance intentions.…”

Virtue and virtuousness in organizations: Guidelines for ascribing individual and organizational moral responsibility

“…Similarly, when organizational practices facilitate, promote, or accept unethical individual behavior instead of preventing or stopping it, organizational virtues (i.e., achievability, supportability, visibility, and sanctionability) that influence the causal condition are turned into vice and thus fail to contribute to the overall virtuousness of the organization. For instance, organizational practices that do not support whistle‐blowers amplify organizational moral responsibility because organizational factors, such as the perceived effectiveness of reporting (Miceli et al, 2008), influence employees' willingness to report (Hess et al., 2019). We may delineate the following guidelines for ascribing moral blame (abbreviated to MB):

MB1: The more individuals act so as to deter, fight, or signal organizational unethical (vicious) practices, the less they are blameworthy for unethical (vicious) organizational outcomes.MB2: The more the organizational practices respond to unethical (vicious) individual behavior by optimally embedding the virtues of achievability, supportability, visibility, and sanctionability, the less the organization is blameworthy for unethical (vicious) outcomes.

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Psychological and Hierarchical Closeness as Opposing Factors in Whistleblowing: A Meta-Analysis

“…One would assume that interpersonal closeness is negatively related to the willingness to report a wrongdoing because of the trust and loyalty developed between colleagues (Greenberger et al, 1987). Indeed, individuals are less willing to report a friend (Hess et al, 2019;King, 1997;Waytz et al, 2013). Within organizations, individuals are members of formal (e.g., team, workgroup) and informal (e.g., demographics) groups (Ashforth & Johnson, 2001).…”

“…Although there is a growing body of literature on whistleblowing, among the most understudied factors is the relationship between the whistleblower and the wrongdoer (Anvari et al, 2019;Bergemann & Aven, 2020;Hess et al, 2019). Given that whistleblowing involves an individual who observes someone else performing an unethical act, there are reasons to believe that the whistleblowing decision is likely to depend on how close or distant the former is to the latter.…”