Personal Dynamics, Organizational Support and Whistleblowing Intentions among Employees in Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

Whistleblowing is essential to organizations as it helps to expose wrongdoings or behaviors which if left, may degenerate to unethical actions that may further bring about loss of property or damage reputation. Even though whistleblowing in Kenyan public universities is rare, some surveys have illustrated instances of whistleblowing from both members of the public and administrators. The purpose of this study was to determine how personal dynamics, organizational support, and whistleblowing intentions among employees in public Universities in Kenya influence whistleblowing intentions as moderated by organizational support. The specific objective were; to examine the relationship between gender and whistleblowing intentions; to establish the relationship between altruism and whistleblowing intentions, to determine the relationship between ethical values and whistleblowing intentions, to establish the relationship between attitude and whistleblowing intentions as well as to determine the moderating effect of organizational support on the relationship between personal dynamics and whistleblowing intentions among employees in public universities in Kenya. The study was anchored on the following four theories Rational Choice, Planned Behavior, Prosocial Behavior and Organizational Support. The study adopted a positivist research philosophy and correlational research design. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine the effects of gender, altruism, ethical values and attitude on whistleblowing intentions among employees in public universities. The research utilized questionnaires as the tool in the collection of primary data. The reliability was examined using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient where an average of 0.85 was obtained from study parameters for internal consistency. Descriptive statistics were obtained using frequencies and percentages and multivariate linear regression was used to determine the factors that were associated with whistleblowing intentions among employees in public Universities in Kenya. The target population was 30,818 employees from public university in Kenya. A sample size of 395 respondents was obtained using Yamane formulae. Proportionate sampling was used to obtain the number of respondents in each university and simple random sampling was used to select respondents to fill the questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were analyzed in form of Mean and Standard deviation while multiple linear regression model and correlation analysis were used to establish the relationships of the study constructs. There was a statistically significant difference in whistle blowing intentions among males and females. On average, males showed higher whistleblowing intentions compared to females (R 2 = 0.22, β = 0.96, p-value = 0.007). In addition, a one-unit increase in altruism was associated with an increase in whistleblowing intentions by 0.14 (R 2 = 0.18, β =0.14, p-value = 0.016), similarly a one-unit increase in ethical values resulted in an increase in whistleblowing intentions by 0.22 (R 2 = 0.28, β= 0.22, p-value = 0.003) and finally a one-unit increase in attitude led to an increase in whistleblowing intentions by 0.12 (R 2 = 0.21, β = 0.12, p-value = 0.024). The R2 value obtained before introduction of the moderator was 0.72 and after introduction of the moderator was 0.77. Therefore the R2 change was 0.05. This showed that organizational support which was the moderator had a positive impact on altruism (β = 0.04, pvalue = 0.021) and attitude (β = -0.04, p-value < 0.001) on whistleblowing intentions and insignificant impact on gender (p-value = 0.582) and ethical values (p-value = 0.523). The study findings revealed that gender, altruism, ethical values and attitude all have positive and significant relationships with whistleblowing intentions and organizational support moderates the relationship. The study recommends that universities need to formulate policies which take into account gender differences, put in place mechanisms of identifying altruists who will promote whistleblowing, continuous sensitization of employees on whistleblowing intentions, need to create a positive culture and finally develop policies that ensures protection of whistleblowers. The study may be beneficial to Universities, Academia and also Government.