The Effects of Organizational Dependence and Hotline Administration on Whistleblowing Accounting Fraud

The EU Whistleblower Directive 2019/1937 states that companies can administer their internal whistleblowing lines at their own discretion (e.g., via anonymous internal or external hotlines). However, it remains unclear how the respective reporting line influences whistleblowers' perceptions or hinders/promotes whistleblowing when the organization's survival or success depends on the wrongdoing. In this study, we investigate how the hotline administration and level of organizational dependence—measured via a description of material versus immaterial beneficial consequences of a financial statement—influence whistleblowing intentions. Results of an online 2 × 2 experiment support our hypothesis that the intention to blow the whistle is stronger if the organizational dependence on the wrongdoing is described as high rather than low, but only weakly support the hypothesis that organizational dependence interacts with the channel administration. However, supplemental analyses suggest that externally administered hotlines positively affect safety and anonymity perceptions when reporting highly material fraud. Our findings underline how strongly materiality affects whistleblowers' reporting intentions even when the organization depends on the wrongdoing. In practice, reporting instances of wrongdoing with low materiality may be encouraged by providing multiple reporting channels, lowering materiality disclosure thresholds, and by strengthening the “ethical infrastructure” of an organization via additional formal and informal measures.