Supervisors: Sonja Perkovic & Sebastian Oelrich
Discussants: Claus Holm & Ann-Kristina Løkke Møller

Abstract
Whistleblowing provides organizations with critical information. Despite its importance, research has mainly focused on individuals’ intentions to blow the whistle rather than actual behaviour. This focus is largely due to methodological challenges, including the difficulty of designing studies that elicit behaviour and the limited access to quantitative data. As a result, few studies have empirically examined whistleblowing behaviour, and those that have are dispersed across various disciplines such as accounting, psychology, and business ethics. Therefore, this systematic review synthesizes the methodological approaches that have enabled scholars across these disciplines to investigate whistleblowing behaviour empirically. The review offers concrete directions for future research on studying whistleblowing while also serving as a guide for other elusive behaviours – such as social exclusion, fraud, and sharing of misinformation – phenomena that are similarly difficult to observe due to their hidden or sensitive nature.

These findings will form the foundation for the remainder of the PhD project, which aims to examine organizational whistleblowing behaviour empirically. To this end, a collaboration will be established with an external whistleblowing platform provider. Taking the platform’s proprietary data as a point of departure, the second paper will examine how external events (e.g., #MeToo, Boeing, Wirecard) correlate with organizational whistleblowing. Drawing on the extensive customer base of the platform provider, the third paper will be a field experiment examining which changes to the reporting channels of organizations lead to increases in employee reporting.

Everyone is welcome!