J Bus Ethics (2015) 131:107119

DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2271-z

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing: Mediating Roles

of Psychological Safety and Personal Identification
Sheng-min Liu Jian-qiao Liao Hongguo Wei

Received: 26 July 2013 / Accepted: 22 June 2014 / Published online: 8 January 2015
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract The issues of organizational wrongdoing damage organizational performance and limit the development
of organizations. Although organizational members may
know the wrongdoing and have the opportunity to blow the
whistle, they would keep silent because of the interpersonal
risks. However, leaders can play an important role in
shaping employee whistleblowing. This study focuses on
discovering the mechanisms of how authentic leaders
influence employee whistleblowing with a sample from
China. Results demonstrate that authentic leadership is
positively related to internal whistleblowing. Team psychological safety partly mediates the relationship between
authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. Personal
identification partly mediates the relationship between
authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. The
study contributes to the extant theory by filling the gap
between leadership and whistleblowing.
Keywords Internal whistleblowing
Authentic
leadership
Psychological safety
Personal identification

S. Liu
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and
Technology, Jungong Road 516, Shanghai 200093, China
e-mail: lsm19801222@126.com
J. Liao (&)
School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Luoyu Road 1037, Wuhan 430074, China
e-mail: Jimliao@mail.hust.edu.cn
H. Wei
Department of Organizational Behavior,
Weatherhead School of Management,
Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
e-mail: hongguo.wei@case.edu

Introduction
Incidences of organizational wrongdoing increase the
chance of crises in business field. 75 % of employees have
been reported doing wrongdoing such as vandalism,
absenteeism, damage, and so on (Robinson and Bennett
1995), meanwhile 95 % of listed companies detect some
deviant behaviors inside the organizations (Henle et al.
2005). One way to detect workplace deviance is whistleblowing. Whistleblowing was first presented as an ethical
issue over 20 years ago (Miceli and Near 1988). The
existing literature has not probed whistleblowing from the
perspective of organizational leader, either in the format of
external or internal. External whistleblowing makes it so
easy to expose the wrongdoing to the public that the image
of the companies would be damaged, which is detrimental
to the organizational development. Thus, external whistleblowing is often not encouraged by organizational
leaders.
As wrongdoing increases in the workplace, whistleblowing turns out to be more valuable for the organization
(Callahan and Dworkin 2000), including reducing the loss
of company property, revealing fraud, exposing corruption,
and protecting public interests. One-third of the deviant
behaviors are disclosed directly or indirectly by whistleblowers (Sweeney 2008). Some individuals view whistleblowers as heroes who defend ethical values such as
environmental protection and food safety. Given the positive impacts, whistleblowing is encouraged by organizations to some extent. However, others consider
whistleblowers as traitors (Rothschild and Miethe 1999)
because they believe that wrongdoing should be rectified
only by the organizations and they fear that the disclosure
through whistleblowing is against the confidentiality (Nayir
and Herzig 2012). Thus, whistleblowers suffer the risk of

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being considered as traitors by co-workers and other

employers.
Building appropriate whistleblowing policy promotes
trust but this effect is limited if leaders dont reinforce
ethical behavior (Lewis 2011). The positive leadership
may play a critical role in promoting whistleblowing as it
does with the voice of conscience (Nayir and Herzig 2012)
and ethical pro-social behavior. For instance, studies have
found that both transformational and ethical leadership can
predict whistleblowing attitude and behavior (Bhal and
Dadhich 2011; Caillier 2013a, b). By integrating theories
of transformational leadership and ethical leadership,
Avolio et al. (2004) built the theory of authentic leadership
to illustrate how a leader could cope with ethics crisis
emerging in the uncertain and changing environment such
as the Enron event. Although some literature have explored
the antecedents of internal whistleblowing, they mainly
focused on the values, attitude, and subjective norm of
whistleblowers (Miceli and Near 1988; Nayir and Herzig
2012; Park and Blenkinsopp 2009), there thus have been
rare insights in terms of how an authentic leader leads and
manages employees internal whistleblowing. Compared to
other leadership styles, authentic leaders act to capture
positive self-development following the internalized moral
values and thus tends to win strong trust of followers
(Clapp-Smith et al. 2009; Walumbwa et al. 2008).
Employees who trust leaders are more likely to report the
wrongdoing to their leaders or organizations than those
who do not (Berry 2004). Further, Hannah et al. (2011)
suggest that authentic leadership can encourage ethical prosocial behavior. Thus, we suggest that authentic leadership
would play a positive role in stimulating employee internal
whistleblowing.
Authentic leadership includes four dimensions such as
self-awareness, balanced processing, relational transparency, and internalized moral perspective (Avolio et al.
2004; Luthans et al. 2005; Walumbwa et al. 2008). For
authentic leaders, self-awareness is defined as the extent to
which leaders are aware of their strengths, weakness, and
motivation, as well as discerning how employees recognize
their leadership. Balanced processing means soliciting
opinions that even challenge leaders authority. Relational
transparency refers to exposing oneself, such as publicly
expressing and sharing thoughts, perceptions, and information. Internalized moral perspective shows that leaders
behaviors are guided by their internal moral values and
beliefs rather than by external pressures such as organizational corruption or threats from peers.
In this current study, authentic leadership is used to
explain how authentic leaders influence followers internal
whistleblowing at multi-level. Debates about the preferred
form of whistleblowing by employees have been lasted for

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a while (Park et al. 2008). The majority infers that whistleblowers prefer to blow internal whistle than external
whistleblowing when the internal whistleblowing mechanisms function normally (Nayir and Herzig 2012). In
addition, the level of analysis is critical to discern
employee behavior and explain the relationship between
leadership and employee behavior (Rousseau 1985). Thus,
this study examines internal whistleblowing at multi-level.
Another reason to look at the whistleblowing is this
behavior seems much easier for employees at the collective
level. Literature indicates that in many companies, even
with an open channel for blowing the whistle, 20 %
employees are afraid to report wrongdoing individually
(Clemmons 2007). We anticipate that team psychological
safety would exhibit risk-spreading in group promoting
effect (Fishbein 1975), which is convenient to expose the
issue of organization corruption.
Finally, we collected data in the Chinese context. Nayir
and Herzig suggest that cultural value orientations play a
significant role in whistleblowing (Nayir and Herzig 2012).
The extant literature mainly focuses on the cultural contexts in Europe and the US; few studies about the whistleblowing in non-Western countries have been published
(Miceli et al. 2009). Furthermore, in the vertical collectivistic culture of China (Chen et al. 1997; Triandis and
Gelfand 1998), employees view leaders expectation as the
standard of the work group. Therefore, leaders in Chinese
organizations may play significant roles in employee
whistleblowing.
Our theoretical model was built based on the above
explanation (see Fig. 1). Authentic leadership impacts
employee behaviors at multi-levels (Avolio and Gardner
2005). Thus, we propose a multi-level model to explore
how authentic leadership influences employee whistleblowing via extensive psychological mechanisms. Specifically, at the group level, authentic leadership might build a
climate as team psychological safety; at the individual
level, it might enhance the level of personal identification.
Team psychological safety, which minimizes fears about
personal risks, can reduce the avoidance motive for whistleblowing. Personal identification with authentic leaders
can improve ones intrinsic motivation to approach whistleblowing behaviors.
The contribution of this study lies in twofold. First, this
research bridges the gap between authentic leadership
theory and whistleblowing theory. Through testing the
multi-level psychological mechanism, this research
explores the antecedents of workplace whistleblowing from
leadership perspective. Second, authentic leadership is still
at the early stage of construct development. This study
provides some empirical evidence to testify the predictive
and nomological validity of this construct.

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing

Fig. 1 Research framework

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Group Level

Authentic Leadership

Individual Level

Theory Background and Hypotheses

Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing is defined as the disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or
illegitimate practices under the control of their employers,
to persons or organizations that may be able to effect
action (Near and Miceli 1985). According to the different
objects, whistleblowing is divided into external whistleblowing (blowing the whistle to the authorities or the
public outside of the organization) and internal whistleblowing (blowing the whistle to persons and managers
inside of an organization) (Park et al. 2008). External
whistleblowing may damage organizational image while
internal whistleblowing can provide an opportunity for
organizations to correct the unethical practices (Miceli and
Near 1988). Furthermore, employees are anticipated to
exhaust internal whistleblowing for disclosing the misconduct before they choose external whistleblowing (Grant
2002). From the organizational management perspective,
there are so enough time and resources for organizations to
adjust the internal whistleblowing channel convenient for
whistleblowers that the leaders can manage organizational
wrongdoing efficiently. Therefore, this study focuses on
internal whistleblowing that leaders can control and guide.
Internal whistleblowing is conceptually different from
prosocial voice. Prosocial voice refers to the expression of
constructive suggestions which may challenge the status
quo (Van Dyne et al. 1995), while whistleblowing happens
with the report of wrongdoing without including changing
orientation. Whistleblowing is also different from prohibitive voice. Prohibitive voice describes employees
expressions of concern about work practices, incidents, or
employee behavior that is harmful to the organization
(Liang et al. 2012), while whistleblowing focuses on disclosing wrongdoing. For example, the employee tells the
supervisor that a worker often makes operational mistakes
because the workers competence is low. This behavior
belongs to prohibitive voice not whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is more challenging than prohibitive voice, and
thus, it needs more support from the authentic leadership. If
employees disclose things like malversation in order to
protect organizational interests, authentic leaders are likely

Psychological Safety

Personal Identification

Internal Whistleblowing

to support it in spite of the challenge. Whistleblowing is

also different from grievance, by which employees show
the negative emotions of dissatisfaction in the workplace.
Therefore, grievance delivers less effective information for
the organization than whistleblowing because the latter
may exhibit more important information about deviant
behaviors.
Although whistleblowing is valuable for management
practices, it is still rare in Chinese workplace. Whistle
blowers would face interpersonal risks such as retaliation
and discrimination from colleagues, future, and current
employers (Vinten 1995). In China, the social cultural level
motive to maintain interpersonal harmony enables people
to disregard others wrongdoing or avoid confronting social
situations like corruption (Huang 1999; Zhang et al. 2011).
Therefore, in China, whistleblowing is considered as a
negative behavior, which can damage the interpersonal
relationship. However, China is also guided by vertical
collectivism culture (Chen et al. 1997; Triandis and Gelfand 1998). Employees view leaders behaviors and
expectations as the behavioral standard in the workplace,
so positive leadership increases the chance of whistleblowing that is valuable and effective to disclose organizational wrongdoing.
Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing
Theoretically, authentic leadership is likely to play a
positive role in shaping organizational behaviors (e.g.,
organizational citizenship behavior) and employee work
attitudes (e.g., organizational commitment) (Avolio et al.
2004). Although little literature has been explored the
relationship between authentic leadership and whistleblowing, previous studies suggest that authentic behaviors
performed by leaders can raise trust (Walumbwa et al.
2011) and moral perspective of subordinates (Avolio et al.
2004; Gardner et al. 2005). Authentic leadership may
promote followers ethical behaviors (Hannah et al. 2011)
such as whistleblowing. This study explains why whistleblowing should be integrated into the framework of
authentic leadership theory from trust and moral perspectives. First, authentic leaders like to pay more attention to
monitoring employee behaviors (Neider and Schriesheim
2011) and be awareness of organizational functioning

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including corruption and misconduct (Algera and LipsWiersma 2012), so they would accept others help such as
whistleblowing to detect the subordinates unethical
behaviors. Authentic leaders, as moral exemplars, are
highly aware of their beliefs and how these values influence followers (Gardner et al. 2005). Second, transparency
leaders publicly express and share thoughts, values, and
rules with their subordinates, which improve employee
trust (Avolio et al. 2004). Meanwhile, observers of
wrongdoing may know what the right thing is and see
reporting to the supervisor as their responsibilities (Loyens
2013). Third, authentic leaders solicit information from
whistleblowers that even damages interpersonal relationship and organizational authority. In balanced processing,
authentic leaders offer justice channels and support for
team members in team. The disclosed information from
whistleblowers can be fairly processed in order to
encourage whistleblowing behaviors. Observers of
wrongdoing may react positively when their supervisors
value the information they disclose. When potential whistleblowers perceive the support and justice from leaders,
they may reciprocate by disclosing through internal channels which reduces the external risks of whistle-blowing
(Miceli et al. 2001). Further, previous study finds that
internal whistleblowing intentions can be promoted by
justice channels (Seifert et al. 2010), which is reflected in
the balanced processing of authentic leadership. Thus,
whistleblowers prefer disclosing the misconducts transparently in the organization. Finally, leaders in high
internalized moral perspective are more likely to legitimate
the organizational standard and institution (Wong and
Laschinger 2012), regulate ethical decision-making, and
resist wrongdoers retaliation. Inspired by the standard of
moral and value beliefs, employees would blow the whistle
rather than succumbing to external pressure from organizational authority and peers menace.
Walumbwa et al. (2011) suggested that authentic leaders
could promote group trust when they communicated with
subordinates with truthfulness and openness. Li et al.
(2013) similarly suggested that authentic leadership could
raise subordinates trust of self-disclosure practices. Leory
et al. (2012a) proposed that authentic leaders who acted in
line with internalized value held personal responsibility in
high integrity, which would increase employee trust.
Employee trust impacts their behavioral and attitudinal
outcomes (Colquitt et al. 2007). Potential whistleblowers
trusting the supervisors tend to disclose wrongdoing
(Cassematis and Wortley 2013). Subordinates evaluate
their trust in supervisors by telling whether supervisors
treat them with high integrity (Mayer et al. 1995). Before
performing internal whistleblowing, observers of wrongdoing usually predict the interpersonal risks by evaluating
the level of trust they have in leaders. If observers doubt

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leaders integrity and justice to inhibit wrongdoing, they

may keep silent to avoid potential risks (Gundlach et al.
2003; Henik 2005). Evidence has proved that potential
whistleblowers who doubt supervisors ability to limit
unethical behaviors are more likely to keep silent than
performing whistleblowing (Lewis 2011; Near et al. 2004).
Employees who trust their leaders tend to perform internal
whistleblowing rather than external whistleblowing (Binikos 2008). Thus, authentic leaders tend to reduce the
interpersonal risks of whistleblowers from the trust
perspective.
Observers of wrongdoing following moral principles
often have positive attitudes toward whistleblowing (Park
et al. 2014). Individual differences can not sufficiently
explain ones moral courage of whistleblowing, but
authentic leadership may impact this action (Walumbwa
et al. 2011). Leaders with moral and ethical beliefs stress
the importance of leading by example (Avolio et al. 2004).
Authentic leaders high moral perspective and integrity can
shape group value and ethical system through their social
influence and role modeling (Hsiung 2012). With the collective culture orientation in China (Earley 1989), members in groups value human relations more than economic
interests. The value conflict between human relations and
moral orientation complicates potential whistleblowers
thoughts (Henik 2008), which decreases members whistleblowing intentions. Authentic leaders consistent moral
norm and actions promote followers to behave ethically
when they face value dilemmas (Walumbwa et al. 2011).
Potential whistleblowers are inspired by the moral cognitive structure in transparent discussions (Avolio and
Gardner 2005), which reduces discrepancies between
internalized moral and actual action. Self-concordance
motive serves as an impetus to behave according to ones
value (Carver and Scheier 1998). Authentic leaders motivate potential whistleblowers to act in line with their moral
values. Hannah et al. (2011) found that ones moral courage activated by authentic leadership can promote ethical
and pro-social behavior. Cianci et al. (2014) found that
authentic leadership activated observers actions upon guilt
appraisal, which enabled them to take it as personal
responsibility to disclose unethical behaviors.
Henik (2008) proposed that whistleblowing contained
five stages: first, an observed event takes place; second,
potential whistleblowers make a decision of action; third,
acts; four, the reports are delivered to organizations; five,
organizations provide feedback to potential whistleblower
(now the whistleblower) and decide what to do in the future
based on the responses. The present study proposes that
authentic leadership may play an important role at stage
two and five. Personal responsibility to observe wrongdoing usually falls apart if a potential whistleblower is not the
only one responsible in such a context where the bystander

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing

effect occurs (Darley and Latane 1968). If the potential

whistleblowers have more time to analyze the situation, the
diffusion of responsibility may not occur (Miceli et al.
2013) because they can figure out wrongdoing events.
Authentic leaders can promote subordinates self-awareness and optimal self-esteem (Kernis 2003) to obey their
personal beliefs and responsibility regardless of the social
influence and pressure. The rational benefitcost analysis is
very difficult to complete because wrongdoing situations
are often ambiguous (Mclain and Keenan 1999). If
observers find wrongdoing, they may blow the whistle
following the internal moral value activated by authentic
leadership, in which case the potential whistleblowers
usually act alone. If there is only one observer of wrongdoing, bystander effect can be avoided (Robinson et al.
2012). In stage 5, leaders feedback can influence whistleblowers decision-making in next time (Finn 1995).
Justice theory can give some explanation in terms of the
relation between leaders response to a prior disclosure and
employees foregoing action of observing wrongdoing. If
employees report the wrongdoing to leaders, leaders with
high authenticity would balance the transparent information processing and the inhibition of unethical behavior
with high integrity. Justice response from leaders increases
the likelihood of whistleblowing (Seifert et al. 2010).
Further, potential whistleblowers tend to help the organization to point out key functioning issues when they feel
treated fairly by authentic leaders. Contrarily, leaders low
in authentic leadership may neglect previous wrongdoing
or treat reporters unjustly, and then potential whistleblowers may keep silent next time. Based on above discussion, we suggest the following hypothesis:
H1 Higher level of authentic leadership is more likely to
promote internal whistleblowing.
The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety
Team psychological safety is defined as shared beliefs
among team members who feel safe for interpersonal risk
taking in the workplace (Edmondson 1999). Beyond
reflecting high interpersonal trust, this construct exhibits
positive climate characterized by mutual respect, where
members are comfortable disclosing wrongdoing. With
high psychological safety climate, whistleblowers will not
experience negative retaliation by others. Authentic leaders
keep truthful relationships with their subordinates, and
show behavioral integrity by walking their talk (Leroy
et al. 2012c). According to behavioral integrity theory
(Simoms 2002) and social cognition literature (Greenbaum
et al. 2012), leaders, as the authority of organization,
control most resources so that employees have a strong
desire to anticipate and control encounters with their

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leaders in future (Simoms 2002). Then employees want to

perceive how the leaders behave next time. To analyze the
future trend, employees will gather more information,
based on which they interpret their leaders and evaluate
leaders integrity. When leaders do not walk their talk,
employees receive ambiguous information that is inconsistent with the desire to control the encounters with
leaders. Then the subordinates feel psychologically unsafe.
Authentic leadership functions with ones true value which
shapes the patterns of behavior and facilitates behavioral
integrity, that is, the extent of alignment between leaders
words and deeds (Simoms 2002). Thus, authentic leadership is more likely to be considered as the clues of
behavioral integrity by employees. Authentic leadership
can foster a high sense of psychological safety such as
interpersonal trust or mutual respect in the work group
(Leroy et al. 2012b).
When employees feel psychologically safe because of
their trust of leaders who are with high integrity and sufficient ability, they will entail more interpersonal risks to
deliver a warning to leaders of the wrongdoing and misconduct in organization. Leaders may process the conflict
fairly when wrongdoers attack whistleblowers for their
whistleblowing. Furthermore, when a strong relationship of
trust is built between leaders and employees, the number of
perceived retaliations will be decreased (Rehg et al. 2008).
The weak the retaliations employees face, the more likely
they do whistle blow (Liyanarachchi and Newdick 2009).
Actual retaliation can reduce ones whistleblowing intention but not the actual whistleblowing behavior (MesmerMagnus and Viswesvaran 2005). Prior study suggests that
the fear of retaliation has a strong negative impact on
whistleblowing (Keenan 1995). Fear of retaliation may be a
stronger predictor of whistleblowing than actual retaliation
by wrongdoers. Even if the number of retaliation is not
necessarily large, the fear of retaliation would still influence the decision of potential whistleblowers (Cassematis
and Wortley 2013). Rothschild (2008) found that inactive
observers would keep silent for fear of retaliation more
seriously than whistleblowers. Potential whistleblowers
may be classified into two types: observers of wrongdoing
and non-observers who know the wrongdoing. Nonobservers have less evidence than observers who witness
the situation of wrongdoings, so non-observers may face
the risk of inappropriate disclosures while observers assure
the authenticity of wrongdoings. If non-observers disclose
fake wrongdoings, group members may blame them for the
inappropriate disclosures. Thus, observers face retaliation
by wrongdoers while non-observers need to entail interpersonal risks both from wrongdoers and members. Under
the climate of team psychological safety, whistleblowers
feel safely treated by leaders and members if they discover
immoral behaviors (Uys 2000). Authentic leaders

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encourage members to act in line with internalized values,

which promotes non-observers to share the information
they know whether it is the truth or not. With high psychological safety, every member respects each other so that
non-observers can speak out of wrongdoings even if they
make inappropriate disclosures. In this case, all potential
whistleblowers will neglect the fear of revenge by
wrongdoers or others. Thus, authentic leaders help potential whistleblowers to tell what they know by building team
psychological safety. Based on the above argument, we
propose:
H2 Employees perceptions of team psychological safety
mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and
internal whistleblowing.
The Mediating Role of Personal Identification
Personal identification takes place when an individual
believe his or her leader becomes self-defining or selfreferential (Pratt 1998). When a subordinate perceives the
authentic leaders self-awareness, unbiased-processing,
transparent relationship, and internalized moral (Leroy
et al. 2012c), he or she will tell the truth and disclose the
wrongdoing following his/her core moral value. This
mediating role of personal identification between authentic
leadership and whistleblowing can be explained with social
learning theory (Bandura and McClelland 1977). Social
learning theory suggests that our behaviors are influenced,
to some extent, by the environment we pay attention to
(Bandura 1973). We learn how to behave, not only by the
consequences of behaviors, but also by our perceived
environment. An important factor influencing behavioral
learning in environment is the leading models. This ability
of learning from others is promotive as it saves employees
energy of learning through trial and error (Bandura 1971).
Therefore, such modeling processes are considered to be
ubiquitous. Authentic leaders, who occupy the authoritative status, draw attention of followers. If leaders exhibit
some authentic functioning (Leroy et al. 2012a) and
behavioral integrity (Leroy et al. 2012c), followers will pay
more attention to leaders authentic behaviors, then
remember and mimic such behaviors. When they walk their
talk and act as authentic followers guided by their value
and truth belief, these followers are likely to be acknowledged by authentic leaders. Then the followers might form
a strong intrinsic motivation to become a model as the
leader does with internalized moral, core values and
behaviors.
Potential whistleblowers may hesitate facing the value
conflict between collectivism culture orientation (Earley
1989) and disintegration avoidance (Leung et al. 2011) in
China. The first value emphasizes that organizational

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interests are above individual interests while the latter

refers to avoiding actions that will strain a relationship
and lead to its weakening and dissolving (Leung et al.
2011). Whistleblowing information damages the relationship harmony but protects organizational interests. Facing
such an ethical dilemma, moral reasoning may play a
positive role (Dozier and Miceli 1985). By identification
with authentic leaders, potential whistleblowers activate
their moral reasoning. By acting following their true values, they discern moral dilemma and blow the whistle with
optimal self-esteem in spite of the retaliation and negative
relationship pressure. Furthermore, internal whistleblowers
as heroic defenders of moral belief internalize organizational moral and ethics (Nayir and Herzig 2012). The
essence of authentic leadership is that a leader acts himself
and tells the truth through external referent reflected selfimage (Walumbwa et al. 2010). At the deep level, a set of
values may provide subordinates with role prescription by
openly discussing the ambiguous responsibility of reporting wrongdoing. If subordinates identify with their
authentic leaders, they can get more legitimate roles to
report wrongdoing. Followers with role legitimacy would
disclose the wrongdoing and tell the truth after they
internalize leaders authenticity and organizational moral.
Near et al. (1993) found that internal auditing, with the
duty of reporting financial wrongdoing, suffered less
reprisal than other members. Based on the above explanation, we propose the hypothesis:
H3 Employees personal identification with their leaders
mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and
internal whistleblowing.

Method
Sample and Procedures
Participants were recruited from a large telecom corporation in South China. Following George and Jamess
(George and James 1993) suggestion, we viewed employees as a work group when they were lead by the same
supervisor (47 employees per group). In order to reduce
the common method variance (Podsakoff et al. 2003),
leader-members dyad questionnaires were used to differentiate the sources of data. Data were collected in two
times during 6 weeks. At time 1, all the employee participants independently rated the level of authentic leadership
of their supervisors. A response rate of 90.63 % yielded a
sample of 725 employee participants who completed the
questionnaires. At time 2, all the 725 employees who
completed the survey at time 1 were invited to rate the
level of team psychological safety in his or her group and

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing

the extent of personal identification with his or her supervisor. Then the 150 supervisors rated by group employees
separately rated the level of internal whistleblowing.
Finally, 597 employees and 121 supervisors completed the
questionnaires, with the effective response rates being
82.34 and 80.67 %, respectively. In the final employee
sample, 81.4 % were male and 95.3 % were Chinese, with
an average organizational tenure of 4.5 years and an
average age of 26.7 years. The supervisors were 33.8 years
old on average, with 90.1 % being male, 92.6 % Chinese,
and an average organizational tenure of 8.6 years.
Measures
All items were measured on Likert-type scales from 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Because all the
scales were originally developed in English and intended
for use in Chinese, we did translation and back-translation
following the cross-cultural translation procedures (Brislin
1980).
Authentic Leadership
Employees completed the 16-item Authentic Leadership
Questionnaire (ALQ)(Bass and Avolio 1997), which
included intellectual simulation, inspirational motivation,
idealized influence, and individualized consideration.
Sample items include accurately describes how others
view his or her capabilities and makes decisions based
on his/her core beliefs (a = 0.84). Because our study
focuses on leaders who exhibit authentic leadership to
different work groups, we averaged the scores by work
groups. According to the standard of aggregation from
(Bliese 2000), this measure indicated an average rwg of
0.73, ICC(1) of 0.19, and ICC(2) of 0.71.
Psychological Safety
Employees completed the 7-item to psychological safety
scale developed by Edmondson (Edmondson 1999). Sample items include it is safe to take a risk on this team and
it is difficult to ask other members of this team for help
(a = 0.80). Because our study focuses on leaders who
exhibit team psychological safety to different work groups,
we averaged the scores by work groups. This measure
obtained an average rwg of 0.82, ICC(1) of 0.22, and
ICC(2) of 0.79.
Personal Identification
Employees answered the 5-item scale of personal identification from Shamir and colleagues (Shamir et al. 1998).

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Sample questions include my values are similar to his or

her values and he represent values that are important to
me. (a = 0.89).
Whistleblowing
To rate employees whistleblowing behavior, the supervisors completed the 4-item internal whistleblowing scale
developed by Park and Blenkinsopp (Park and Blenkinsopp
2009). According to referent-shift method (Arthur et al.
2007; Chan 1998), to measure internal whistleblowing, a
proactive question if he or she found wrongdoing in your
workplace, he or she would try to do the following was
used. Sample items include tell me about it and let
upper level of management know about it (a = 0.93).
Control Variables
Previous researchers often control for demographic variables such as age and gender. However, given that the
effects of these demographic variables remained unchanged (the significance and effects were highly similar), we
did not explore again these controlling effects below (more
complete tests are available upon request) (Kirkman et al.
2009). In this study, we used power distance as a control
variable because culture value orientations were considered
as important predictors of employees extra-role behaviors
such as whistleblowing (Taylor and Curtis 2013). Power
distance of employees and supervisors was assessed with a
scale developed by Dorfman and Howell (1988), with the
Cronbachs alpha respectively at 0.82 and 0.78.
Analytic Method
Because hypotheses of this study were about variables at
both the individual level (personal identification and
internal whistleblowing) and group level. Every supervisor
rated at least four members whistleblowing, so ratings of
individual members were nested within work groups. All
hypotheses were tested by HLM with the maximum-likelihood method, HLM is a multi-level statistical method that
can decompose the variances of all variables into betweengroup and within-group components (Raudenbush et al.
2002).
Before testing hypotheses, an important step was performed to confirm the adequacy for the multi-level analysis. Individual-level dependent variable (internal
whistleblowing) was tested with null model analysis that
included no predictors so as to identify if there was significant between-group variance. The preliminary analyses
for HLM showed significant between-group variance for
dependent variables of interest (Hofmann et al. 2000).

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Table 1 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations at Group Level

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations at individual level

Variable

Mean

SD

Variable

Mean

SD

1. Supervisor power
distance

4.65

1.34

(0.78)

1. Employee power
distance

4.98

0.47

(0.82)

2. Personal
identification

5.02

1.55

0.04

3. Internal
whistleblowing

4.21

1.32

-0.14**

2. Authentic leadership

4.75

1.69

-0.15*

3. Team psychological
safety

4.99

1.26

-0.19*

(0.84)
0.33**

(0.80)

N = 121. Reliability coefficients are on the diagonal. * p \ 0.05;

** p \ 0.01 (two-tailed test)

(0.89)
0.27***

(0.93)

N = 597. Reliability coefficients are on the diagonal. ** p \ 0.01;

*** p \ 0.001 (two-tailed test)

Results
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
We used confirmatory factor analyses to test the discriminate validity of constructs at the group and individual
levels. At the group level, we contrasted the hypothesized
two-factor model (authentic leadership and psychological
safety) with an alternative one-factor model in which all
items were loaded on one factor, and found that the twofactor model fit the data more adequately (v2/df = 1.27,
p \ 0.01, RMSEA = 0.030, CFI = 0.91, NFI = 0.90). At
the individual level, we contrasted the hypothesized twofactor model (personal identification and internal whistleblowing) with an alternative one-factor model in which all
items were loaded on one factor, and found that the twofactor model fit the data more adeuqately (v2/df = 1.23,
p \ 0.01, RMSEA = 0.022, CFI = 0.93, NFI = 0.91).
Preliminary HLM Analysis
Null model analyses in HLM produced ICC(1) that was
calculated by the percentage of between-group variance
relative to the total variance of dependent variables at
internal level (James 1982). For internal whistleblowing,
ICC(1)
was
0.15
with
positive
information
(v2(120) = 135.72, p \ 0.01). The significant result from
internal whistleblowing showed that multi-level analyses
were meaningful to explain the variance of internal
whistleblowing.
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 indicates means, standard deviations, correlations,
and reliabilities of group variables. As anticipated,
authentic leadership was positively related to team psychological safety (r = 0.33, p \ 0.01). This result provided primary evidence for hypothesis H2.
Table 2 indicates means, standard deviations, correlations and reliabilities of individual variables. Employee
power distance was negatively related to internal whistleblowing (r = -0.14, p \ 0.01). Personal identification was

123

positively related to internal whistleblowing (r = 0.27,

p \ 0.001). These results provided primary support for
hypotheses about multi-level variables.

Hierarchical Regression Analyses

HLM Analysis
Main Effects and Mediating Effects at the Multi-Level
(Hypothesis H1, H2 and H3)
We adopted a four-procedure method of Kenny to test the
mediating process of psychological safety and personal
identification on internal whistleblowing (Kenny et al.
2003). As shown in Table 3: first, model 2 proved the
significant main effect between authentic leadership and
internal whistleblowing (b = 0.37, p \ 0.01), which supported Hypothesis H1. Second, model 7 certified the significant relationship between authentic leadership and
psychological safety (b = 0.29, p \ 0.01); meanwhile,
model 8 also proved the positive relationship between
authentic leadership and personal identification (b = 0.25,
p \ 0.01). Third, model 3 testified the positive relationship
between psychological safety and internal whistleblowing
(b = 0.27, p \ 0.01); model 4 confirmed the positive
impact of personal identification with leaders on internal
whistleblowing (b = 0.13, p \ 0.01). Fourth, from model
3 to model 5, when psychological safety was added into the
regression equation, the regression coefficient of psychological safety was significant (b = 0.24, p \ 0.05), and the
regression coefficient of authentic leadership was still
significant (b = 0.21, p \ 0.05). Thus, psychological
safety played a partly mediating role in the regression
equation and Hypothesis H2 was supported. Similarly,
from model 4 to model 6, when we added personal identification in the regression equation, the regression coefficient of personal identification was positively significant
(b = 0.09, p \ 0.05), and the regression coefficient of
authentic leadership was still significant (b = 0.23,
p \ 0.05), thus personal identification also had partly

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing

115

Table 3 Results of HLM at multi-level

Predictors

IW
model1

IW
model2

IW
model3

IW
model4

IW
model5

IW
model6

3
model7

5
model8

-0.15

-0.07

-0.09

-0.12

0.04

0.01

-0.10

0.07

0.21*

0.23*

Group level
1. Supervisor power distance
2. Authentic leadership

0.37**

3. Psychological safety

0.27**

0.29**

0.25**

0.24*

Individual level
4. Employee power distance
5. Personal identification
*R2

-0.13**

-0.09*

-0.11*

0.20

0.29

0.25

-0.07*
0.13**
0.27

-0.08*
0.33

-0.02
0.09*
0.30

0.03
0.22

0.19

N = 121 groups and 597 individuals; * p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.01, *** p \ 0.001; IW internal whistleblowing

mediating impact in the regression equation, so we confirmed Hypothesis H3.

Discussion and Conclusions

We explored how authentic leaders encourage employee
whistleblowing, addressing a knowledge gap in whistleblowing literature. The results showed a positive relationship between authentic leadership and employee
whistleblowing. Furthermore, team psychological safety
and personal identification played positive roles in mediating this relationship. Specifically, authentic leaders could
build psychological safety climate to eliminate psychological barrier of internal whistleblowing. Meanwhile, the
employees showed personal identification with authentic
leaders so that the individuals could blow the whistle following the internalized moral. By authentic functioning
and behavioral integrity, authentic leaders could help the
group and individuals to avoid the risk of being treated as
traitors and guide the internal whistleblowers to approach
heroes by themselves. Although Chinese people pay
attention to the guanxi (a wide relationship) with others
(Xin and Pearce 1996), they attach more importance to
obey the leaders with power and authority (Farh et al.
2007). Thus, authentic leaders can play more critical roles
in promoting whistleblowing despite which may damage
the guanxi and superficial harmony. In conclusion,
authentic leadership in the Chinese cultural context plays a
positive role in stimulating internal whistleblowing by
building the team psychological safety and personal
identification.
We tested all the hypotheses with hierarchical linear
modeling. Results concerning the first set of hypotheses
showed that higher level of authentic leadership would
improve internal whistleblowing (H1), and thus this

hypothesis was confirmed. This argument was based on

previous literature suggesting that authentic leadership
would promote pro-social and ethical behavior (Hannah
et al. 2011). Our rationale for the finding was that leaders in
higher authentic functioning positively influence whistleblowing decisions at the individual level. Although whistleblowers fear the retaliation from others, this fear may
disappear with the authentic support from leaders who
exhibit internalized moral against any wrongdoing. In
addition, the authentic functioning and behavioral integrity
exhibit dual effects in organizations. Organizational
response is a proactive factor which influences potential
whistleblowers (Miceli et al. 2013). Leaders response is a
key cue from which subordinates can learn what unethical
behaviors are and how to treat wrongdoings (Finn 1995).
Through the learning and socialization procession,
authentic leaders influence both the individual and organization propensity for whistleblowing (Cassematis and
Wortley 2013). At the individual level, authentic leaders
serve as an example for observers of wrongdoing when
they fight and disclose unethical behaviors. Also authentic
leaders build integrity by analyzing gray areas and giving
positive feedback to individual reporters. The moral reasoning makes individual subordinates believe that it is their
duty to disclose wrongdoing and they blow the whistle in
line with their internalized moral values. Authentic leaders
build just and transparent channels for whistleblowing, so
group members are likely to consistently manage and
control the wrongdoing. Then the organizational propensity
facilitates the internal whistleblowing. Potential whistleblowers accept and respect the influence of authentic
leaders in whistleblowing process.
Our second set of hypotheses predicted the mediating
roles of psychological safety at the multi-levels. Under the
positive climate of communication and voice, team psychological safety is positively related to team learning

123

116

(Edmondson 1999), which is convenient for team members

to share information of wrongdoing. Thus, we confirmed
the role of psychological safety in mediating the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing (H2). In addition, whistleblowers face some risks
and internal barriers especially the retaliation from
wrongdoers. Whistleblowers will perceive fewer risks
when they have high rather than low psychological safety.
Authentic leaders tend to create a safety climate where
group members can make decisions without fearing the
retaliation. We confirmed that authentic leaders could
create a safe atmosphere for internal whistleblowing (H2).
We tested the H3 to test the mediating roles of personal
identification on the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is a
type of planned behavior in calculating the risk and interests (Park and Blenkinsopp 2009). It is difficult for
potential whistleblowers to make a decision when facing
moral dilemmas between disclosing the truth and keeping
superficial harmonious relationship with wrongdoers.
When the potential reporters recognize the meaning of
authenticity and identify with their leaders with the moral
courage activated by authentic leaders (Hannah et al.
2011), they will blow the whistle according to their true
value rather than quitting because of the pressure in organizations. The results suggest that authentic leaders can be
authentic modeling for followers.
The contribution of this study lies in that we fill the gap
between whistleblowing theory and leadership theory. The
authentic leaders responses could be an indicator of
whistleblowing behaviors. Park and his colleagues suggested that whistleblowing was a type of planned behavior
that whistleblowers calculated the risk and interests (Park
and Blenkinsopp 2009), we extend their conclusion by
reflecting both the approaching and avoiding motives of
whistleblowing: in the context of authentic leadership, we
examine psychological safety (avoiding being treated as a
traitor) and personal identification (approaching true hero
for himself or herself), which have not been tested in
previous empirical studies. Furthermore, in Chinese cultural context, employees are expected to handle three types
of relationships in an organization. We should subordinate
individual interests to organizational interests (collectivism) (Earley 1989), subordinate individual interests to
other colleagues interests (superficial harmony) (Huang
1999), and subordinate individual interests to supervisors
interests (Chinese traditionality) (Farh et al. 2007). Whistleblowing, as a disclosure of wrongdoing, may reduce
others interests and damage superficial harmony but protect interests of leaders and organizations. Leaders can take
away whistleblowers fears of damaging superficial harmony or being treated as traitors. To some extent, this
study proves that authentic leaders can build psychological

123

S. Liu et al.

safety climate and activate internalized authentic belief for

whistleblowers to reveal wrongdoing.
This study provides some implications for managerial
practice. Whistleblowing is a type of behavior to improve
organizational management. Nowadays, we should view
whistleblowing as an important way for organizational
transformation, rather than as a taboo to be repelled (Miceli
et al. 2009). Group leaders should make commitment to
protect whistleblowers by establishing legislation. Building
the voicing channels for employees is a bottom-up way to
disclose information. Creating a safety climate is critical to
encourage employees to engage in whistleblowing. Most
importantly, leaders must walk the talk and keep their
behavioral integrity, which shapes employees perceived
psychological safety. At the individual level, the leaders
should guide by following their internalized moral perspectives and paying attention to behavioral integrity.
Companies could benefit from the frequent high quality
communication between leaders and employees. Chinese
people respect the value of keeping silence is gold, so
they do not like to disclose wrongdoing even if they notice
it. By serving as a model with high moral standards, leaders
can be identified by followers and employees may internalize these business moral perspectives. With the fit
between organizational culture and members values, they
may disclose the truth and motivate others to blow the
whistle, and thus help organizational development. Finally,
leaders should reveal ethical issues and fulfill ethical
commitment in the decision-making process. By communicating with their employees, leaders can exhibit a moral
modeling so that subordinates are more likely to report
misbehavior.
This study is subject to a number of limitations. First,
data analyses were based on a sample from a telecom
corporation in China. The findings may have limited
external validity. Second, we used questionnaire responses.
Although we collected data in two separate times, there
might still common method variance between authentic
leadership and psychological safety or personal identification. Besides, the data on psychological safety, personal
identification and whistleblowing were collected in time 2.
Thus, the results might not reflect the hypothesized causal
relationship. For the future research, we suggest the data be
completed in three times, with a diverse representative
sample. Further, it is necessary to explore the mediating
variables and mechanisms between authentic leadership
and psychological safety or personal identification. Moreover, whistleblowing is a type of planned behavior influenced by national culture and value orientations (Nayir and
Herzig 2012; Wated and Sanchez 2005). For example,
Chinese guanxi may enable employees to prioritize some
whistleblowing over others, because Chinese people prefer
to first disclose persons who are remote in our network.

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing

Thus, the cultural context of whistleblowing would be

valuable to discuss in the future. Finally, the mechanism
between leadership and whistleblowing may be impacted
by personal and situational factors (Cassematis and Wortley 2013), different forms of whistleblowing such as
external and anonymous whistleblowing (Nayir and Herzig
2012), and various types of observed wrongdoing (Robinson et al. 2012). All these topics are still valuable to be
explored.
Acknowledgments We acknowledge the funding of this study by
Natural Science Foundation of ChinaReference Number 71232001
and 70972016. We are grateful to the help of Bruce J. Avolio who is
Professor, Executive Director, Foster School of Business, University
of Washington.

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