This study focuses on accounting professionals as potential whistleblowers who have been identified by legislative provisions in the Malaysian institutional context (May-Amy et al., 2020). Latan et al., (2019) extend the fraud triangle model consisting of financial pressure or incentives, opportunities and rationalization. in the context of signaling in Indonesia. In the Kenyan institutional setting, Hellman et al., (2021) apply the construct of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992) and self-concept (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) to the extrapolation of WBIs among auditors.
Religious individuals are law abiding and will blow the whistle when confronted with unethical behavior in the workplace (Puni et al., 2016). In connection with the auditors, Alleyne et al. 2018) highlight that auditors may choose to disclose wrongdoing outside the profession, the regulator or the media.
Research Methodology 1 Sample and Procedures
In a similar vein, Dyreng et al. 2012) state that managers with high levels of religiosity are unlikely to engage in unethical activities but are more likely to report financial irregularities involving their colleagues. Prior to data collection, the questionnaire was pre-tested to obtain opinions and suggestions from an expert panel of respondents (Rossiter, 2008) and to reduce potential bias (Podsakoff et al., 2012). Based on one-on-one meetings with them, some questions were reformulated for the final questionnaire.
Respondents were also informed that completing the questionnaire was completely voluntary and that there were no right or wrong answers, which encouraged them to answer all questions honestly (Podsakoff et al., 2012). An example of an item about religiosity is "My religious beliefs influence many of my decisions and actions in life." Self-efficacy was measured to understand the respondent's beliefs about their error disclosure abilities, operationalized using three items adapted from Shi et al. An example of a self-efficacy item is "I believe I have the ability to report fraudulent accounting activities." Perceived control was measured to understand respondents' beliefs about whether their whistleblowing behavior was under their voluntary control.
An example of a perceived control item is "It is entirely up to me whether I want to report fraudulent accounting activity or not." Attitude was measured to understand the respondent's feelings and thoughts about the emotional consequences of whistleblowing behaviour, operationalized using three items adapted from Parkinson et al. The third part measured perceptions of external WBI using a case scenario adapted from Alleyne et al. The use of scenarios or vignettes is considered appropriate and effective for obtaining data in whistleblower studies (Gundlach et al., 2008), as it can provide respondents with a more realistic context (Reidenbach and Robin, 1990).
This approach is consistent with the method used in previous studies examining the likelihood of whistleblowing behavior among respondents (Patel, 2003; Zhang et al., 2009).
Data Analysis and Results
The results of the full collinearity test show that all VIF values were lower than 3.3 (religiosity: 1.222; perceived control: 2.441; self-efficacy: 2.589; and external WBI: 1.106), indicating that CMV was not a serious problem in this study. Convergent validity is the degree to which items are related to the construct as theoretically conceptualized. 2017) suggest that the loading and average variance extracted (AVE) should exceed 0.5 and the composite reliability (CR) should reach 0.7 to ensure that convergent validity is established in the model. Discriminant validity is the degree of measurement of whether all constructs differ from other constructs in the model (Hair et al., 2017).
This study tested discriminant validity using the heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) relationship as suggested by Franke and Sarstedt (2019). Based on Table 4, all HTMT values are lower than 0.90, indicating that discriminant validity is established. Both assessments for the measurement model show that the measurement points are valid and reliable, which allows for hypothesis testing. control Religiosity Self-efficacy Attitude.
Before testing the structural model, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw (2006) propose that the model be tested for multicollinearity, requiring VIF values to be lower than 3.3 to not reflect multicollinearity issues. This study continues with the evaluation of the coefficient of determination (R²), the effect size (ƒ²) of the exogenous variables on the endogenous variables and the predictive significance (Q²). Finally, the predictive power of the out-of-sample model was assessed by performing PLS prediction with tenfold procedures. 2019) propose that the model has a high predictive power if all indicators in the analysis have lower RMSE values compared to the naive LM standard, an average predictive power if most indicators in the PLS-SEM analysis give smaller prediction errors compared to LM, and low predictive power if a minority of indicators produces lower PLS-SEM prediction errors compared to the naive LM benchmark.
However, if PLS-SEM analysis (compared to LM) yields lower prediction errors in terms of RMSE for any of the indicators, this indicates that the model lacks predictive power.
Discussion
As shown in Table 6, most of the item differences for attitude, self-efficacy, perceived control, and external WBI have lower RMSE values compared to the naive LM benchmark. This study adds to the ethics literature by highlighting the role of religiosity in the whistleblower context. The results also reveal the significant consequences of religiosity in influencing Muslim auditors' attitudes toward the contextual factors of self-efficacy and perceived control.
It can be concluded that the higher the religious belief individuals have, the higher they perceive themselves as self-efficacious on the WBI. Therefore, H3 is not supported, indicating that the religious belief one has does not affect his/her attitude toward whistleblowing. One explanation for why religiosity may not affect the attitude of Muslim auditors is that they undertake their careers professionally.
This means that Muslim auditors who adhere strictly to religious principles, as evidenced by the high scores for religiosity, are more likely to externally expose the misdeeds that take place within the audit firm. From the perspective of ABC theory, the results of this study suggest that self-efficacy and perceived control are the contextual factors that strongly influence outside whistleblowers. This study concludes that Muslim auditors with a high perception of self-efficacy will display positive attitudes about their ability to whistleblower externally.
This study concludes that Muslim auditors who have favorable attitudes are more willing to disclose wrongdoing in their audit firms.
Conclusion
Since religiosity is found to have an impact on a person's ethical beliefs, Muslim accountants who have a high level of religiosity are expected to act more ethically than those who are less religious. Adherence to ethical behavior is part of imaan (faith) and as such, social responsibility and justice are considered an outgrowth of Muslim accountants to reveal wrongdoing in their firms without fear of any retribution. The findings of this study have important practical implications for accounting firms, particularly regarding the effect of religiosity on attitude–behavior relationships.
Thus, improvements in accounting education, professional training and career development would require consideration of the aspects of religiosity that can improve the professional ethical behavior of accountants. As highlighted by Keller et al. 2007), ethical standards are a hallmark of the accounting profession, and "failure to bring appropriate ethical standards to the workplace will certainly hamper the profession's long-standing commitment to serving the public interest." First, the majority of respondents in this study are Muslim accountants who are young, with minimal work experience, and who hold lower positions.
In order to test the causality or long-term effects of the relationship between attitude and behavior, future research should consider a longitudinal study that provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that influence whistleblower behavior. Finally, this study only focuses on Muslim auditors in Malaysia, a country where Muslims make up about 61 percent of the population. Future research may be conducted across multiple countries and cultures to allow comparisons of religious beliefs among professionals.
The extension of the ABC theory with religiosity in whistleblowing studies and can be extended to other ethical behavior studies involving auditors.
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