Efeitos do conhecimento das red flags na relação dos determinantes comportamentais na intenção e no comportamento whistleblower

Abstract

Whistleblower behavior is the most effective mechanism for fighting fraud and corruption, and for protecting organizations against such actions. However, the percentages diverted from organizations to illicit acts is still very high. From the purpose of seeking elements and evidence that promote more and more effective complaints, the development of the research had as main objective to evaluate the effects of the knowledge of the red flags of indications of financial illicit in the relationship between the behavioral determinants in the intention and in the behavior whistleblower. The course of the research used multi-methods in its procedures, from qualitative to quantitative, such as interviews, content analysis, consensus rounds, and structural equation modeling. The initial step identified the behavioral beliefs of local accounting professionals in relation to the environment of suspected illegal acts, the recipients of the complaints, as well as presenting a list of categories and indicators determined through interviews and content analysis of the responses, following the protocol defined in the literature. These indicators were evidenced for the established beliefs of attitude, subjective norm and behavioral control derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), as well as the recent evolution to the Theory of Reasoned Goal Pursuit (TRGP) that incorporated the motivations to fulfill its goals, the available alternative goals, and the approval of these goals by the social referents. To interact in this relationship of personal beliefs and behaviors through knowledge of red flags, the risk assessment attributed to the red flags established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF, 2019) was developed through consensus rounds with experts on the subject. These red flags and their assigned risk were associated with the knowledge model, determined by experience and ability, to explain the judgment and decision to report from the perception of higher/lower risk red flags in a given business context, analyzed through structural equation modeling. Prior to the insertion of the knowledge variables in the theoretical model of behavioral beliefs, an instrument was developed that presented motivation variables, alternative goals and their approval statistically validated and the evaluation of the models already established in the behavioral literature of the Theory of Rational Action (TRA), the TPB, and with the newly established TRGP, analyzed by PLS-SEM that allows the incorporation of formative variables. Given these results, the final step sought to assess the effects of knowledge on the relationship between behavioral beliefs under the influence of knowledge to modify intention and whistleblower behavior. From the inclusion of the formative variable of knowledge, the results showed that the explanatory capacity increased significantly for all models, being the highest respectively for the general models of fundamental complaints in TPB and TRGP, and for external complaints the best results remain with the TRGP. Thus, specialized knowledge and specifically about the knowledge of Red Flags proved to be important in the explanatory process of whistleblower behavior and in the relationships with the other variables, either directly or by moderating intention and motivation. The research results theoretically contribute to highlighting how knowledge can contribute to altering whistleblower behavior. The accounting profession can incorporate this evidence for the training and development of its employees, as well as for the understanding of other personal beliefs that affect the performance of behavior.