Personality effects on two types of whistleblowing decisions

Getting mad and getting even: Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility as predictors of revenge intentions

People's personality trait levels are often assessed by obtaining self-reports or observer (informant) reports on questionnaires (inventories). When the target person is closely acquainted with the observer-as in the case of spouses, close relatives, or close friends-several findings are obtained for full-length measures of the Big Five (Five-Factor Model) or HEXACO personality factors. First, mean scores tend to be comparable between self-reports and observer reports, although Openness to Experience tends to be higher in self-reports than in observer reports. Also, self/observer agreement (in the sense of convergent correlations) tends to be rather high, albeit somewhat lower for cooperation-related traits (HEXACO Honesty-Humility, HEXACO Agreeableness, Big Five Agreeableness) than for other traits. Finally, Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility (and, to some extent, Big Five Agreeableness) show some degree of similarity and assumed similarity between closely acquainted persons.

ABSTRACTWe examined the ability of several Big Five measures to account for variance in HEXACO Personality Inventory–Revised (HEXACO–PI–R) scales and vice versa. Some Big Five measures accounted for more variance in HEXACO Honesty-Humility than did others, but these differences were largely offset by opposing differences in accounting for variance in HEXACO Agreeableness and Emotionality. As a consequence, the various Big Five measures showed similarly large overall deficiencies in accounting for HEXACO scale variance, relative to variance accounted for in Big Five scales by HEXACO–PI–R scales. The results imply that the use of Big Five instead of HEXACO scales entails a large loss of information, about equal to the amount that would be lost by discarding one of the Big Five scales.

We re-oriented the HEXACO personality dimensions to approximate the Big Five, using two measures of the Big Five as targets in a derivation sample and then in cross-validation samples. The HEXACO approximations of Big Five Agreeableness represented blends of HEXACO Agreeableness, Emotionality, and Honesty-Humility. The HEXACO approximations of Big Five Neuroticism represented blends of Emotionality with low Agreeableness and low Extraversion. The residual sixth dimension, unrelated to the Big Five, contrasted Honesty-Humility with HEXACO Agreeableness. We then examined, in additional samples, some correlates of the original and re-rotated HEXACO dimensions. In the original HEXACO factor space, Honesty-Humility was the strongest correlate of unethical behaviors (selfishness and cheating), participant age, and “assumed similarity” to a friend or partner. Upon re-rotation of the HEXACO factors, associations involving these variables were divided between Big Five Agreeableness and the residual sixth dimension. Sex differences were mainly associated with Emotionality but after re-rotation of the HEXACO factors were divided between Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism. We discuss the relative merits of the original and Big Five-targeted HEXACO dimensions with reference to the practical utility of Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism and the simplicity and theoretical interpretability of the original HEXACO factors.

The knowledge of the relationship between tax compliance and numerous personality traits is limited. Willingness to pay taxes is defined and assessed in abundant ways; studies are mostly limited to the Big Five facets, producing ambiguous and theoretically not sufficiently underpinned results. Therefore, the present study explores the relationships between the Big Five personality traits, HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Machiavellianism, and the slippery slope model factors of tax compliance to understand who and why is more likely to comply with taxpaying than others.We applied the social dilemma theory as a framework and CFA, OLS linear regression and dominance analysis on the survey data of 350 respondents. We found that HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Machiavellianism, and Agreeableness affect more factors of tax compliance than the other examined personality traits. We argue that this is because HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Machiavellianism, and Agreeableness are directly linked to the dilemma of prioritising selfish or prosocial actions. Honesty-Humility seems to relate to almost all factors of tax compliance and, thus, seems to be the most important personal determinant of tax compliance. Our research goes beyond the literature findings, as we found individual effects between personality traits and individual tax compliance factors. Consequently, they do not have a linkage between personality traits and tax compliance as a general phenomenon, but they exert different directions and extents regarding the specific tax compliance factors.

W histleblowing as a means of deterring fraud has gained more acceptance in the last ten years. For example, the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 requires publicly traded companies to have a confidential whistleblowing mechanism in place. More recently, during the aftermath of the Madoff scandal, the SEC established a whistleblower hotline. Additionally, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 adds retaliation protections for those individuals reporting fraud to the SEC. Organizations are best served by whistleblowing when fraud is reported internally (Miceli, Near, Rehg, and Van Scotter 2012). When fraud is reported internally, a company has the ability to rectify the situation without a loss of reputation. The academic literature is supportive of whistleblowing as improving corporate governance (Bowen, Call, and Rajgopal 2010). The literature has also offered suggestions on how to make the internal whistleblowing process more amenable to employees. Seifert, Sweeney, Joireman, and Thornton (2010) suggest that fair processes provided by organizational justice encourage employees to come forward. However, while Seifert et al. (2010) find that improved organizational justice increases the likelihood of whistleblowing, the literature has not fully explored the specific mechanisms connecting these two constructs. We extend the findings of Seifert et al. (2010) by examining whether trust provides a mechanism connecting organizational justice to the likelihood of whistleblowing. We hypothesize and find that supervisor trust and organizational trust mediate the relationship between organizational justice and the likelihood of whistleblowing, using some additional data and much of the same data examined in Seifert et al. (2010).

Individual differences in prosocial behaviour are well–documented. Increasingly, there has been a focus on the specific situations in which particular personality traits predict prosocial behaviour. HEXACO Honesty–Humility—the basic trait most consistently linked to prosocial behaviour in prior studies—has been found to predict prosociality most strongly in situations that afford the exploitation of others. Importantly, though, it may be the subjectively perceived situation that affords the behavioural expression of a trait. Following this reasoning, we tested the proposition that Honesty–Humility would predict prosocial behaviour more strongly in situations characterised by, and perceived to contain, two dimensions of interdependence that can afford exploitation: high conflict and high power. However, across a series of incentivised economic games and two large experience sampling studies, we only found inconsistent evidence for the association between Honesty–Humility and prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, the link between Honesty–Humility and prosociality was neither conditional on objective interdependence nor on subjective perceptions of interdependence. Nonetheless, perceptions of conflict and power tracked objective properties of economic games and were related to prosocial behaviour in the lab and field. Future research should take individuals’ subjective understanding of situations into account, which may also help understand the (generalisability of the) effect of Honesty–Humility on prosocial behaviour. © 2019 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology

Examining intrapersonal factors theorized to influence ethics reporting decisions, the relation of self-efficacy as a predictor of propensity for internal whistleblowing is investigated within a US and Canadian multi-regional context. Over 900 professionals from a total of nine regions in Canada and the US participated. Self-efficacy was found to influence participant reported propensity for internal whistleblowing consistently in both the US and Canada. Seasoned participants with greater management and work experience demonstrated higher levels of self-efficacy while gender was also found to be influential to self-efficacy. These individual traits, although related to self-efficacy, did not directly relate to propensities for internal whistleblowing. The findings demonstrate that self-efficacy could represent an important individual trait for examining whistleblowing issues. Internal whistleblowing is becoming an important organizational consideration in many areas of North America, yet there is relatively little research on the topic. Organizations seeking effective internal reporting systems should consider the influence of self-efficacy along with its potential reporting influence. By empirically testing an under-examined component of theory related to internal whistleblowing, this effort contributes to management literature, extending the knowledge beyond a US context, and provides recommendation for managing individual bias with internal reporting systems.

Mapping the interpersonal domain: Translating between the Big Five, HEXACO, and Interpersonal Circumplex

In the current meta-analysis, we examine the relation between age and workplace deviance, and find a small but significant negative correlation (ρ¯ = −.124, k = 198). More importantly, we test several trait-based mechanisms to help explain this relation. Specifically, based on the neo-socioanalytical model of personality change, we hypothesized that those Big Five personality traits that change with age, HEXACO honesty–humility, and trait negative affect mediate this relation. These hypotheses were supported, as the Big Five traits conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism, as well as honesty–humility and trait negative affect simultaneously mediated the negative relation between age and workplace deviance. These findings highlight important underlying mechanisms for this relation and suggest several opportunities for organizations to reduce the occurrence of workplace deviance. Further theoretical and practical implications as well as limitations and future research ideas are discussed.

Explaining workplace delinquency: The role of Honesty–Humility, ethical culture, and employee surveillance

Research on whistleblowing in Sweden is scarce. In this explorative study 21 cases of whistleblowing from human service organisations in Sweden were examined. Extensive material from thematic interviews with 28 whistleblowers, 30 key persons and documents from supervisory authorities such as the National Board of Health and Welfare have been analysed. Some findings were that the organisation problems motivating whistleblowing were usually cutbacks in vital services for users, unethical working methods or abuse of clients. Internal whistleblowing was usually met with silence from supervisors and directors. The whistleblowers then went on with external whistleblowing by reporting the bad conditions to the higher supervisory authorities who started thorough investigations. Their actions caused a lot of negative reactions in the organisation, but they were also supported by media and ordinary citizens. The retaliation processes against the whistleblowers were described. Half of the interview group has left their positions, either on sick leave or by changing jobs. The findings show a stigmatisation process with severe consequences for the individuals. But the cited organisations usually had to change their illegal or immoral practices and benefited in the long run from the whistleblowing events.

Meta-analytic research has established that age exhibits a small negative correlation with counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and a small positive correlation with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, there is a lack of research examining why these relations exist, although it has been proposed that age-related changes in personality traits might explain these relations. Personality traits are generally assumed to be relatively stable, but small changes do occur across the adult lifespan: Especially those personality domains that are predictive of CWB and OCB change with increasing age. In line with these arguments, the current meta-analytic results (k = 18) demonstrate that HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, and Conscientiousness mediate the relation between age and CWB, and that HEXACO Emotionality, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience mediate the relation between age and OCB. These results provide evidence that age-related changes in personality can explain the relation of age with these two dimensions of contextual job performance. Limitations and ideas for future research are discussed.

In this study, we examined the role of intellectual humility (IH) as an antecedent of individual attitude toward sustainable tourism viewed from the lens of personality trait theory, virtue ethics theory, and regenerative tourism principles within a stakeholder framework. Data were collected via Qualtrics in an online survey of 233 adults in the United States. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were applied to the data to test the measurement model. In addition, a bifactor CFA was found to have acceptable fit and appropriate in controlling for common method variance. A series of covariance-based structural equations models (SEMs) was estimated to test the hypothesized model while controlling for common method variance in addition to individual age and gender. Using the chi-square difference test for nested model comparison, we found that intellectual humility was a significant antecedent of the negative ecological impact of tourism (β = 0.14, p < 0.01) while its relationships with economic and social impacts of travel became non-significant after controlling for common method variance. Pro-social tendency, operationalized as HEXACO Honesty–Humility, was also a significant antecedent of the negative ecological impact (β = 0.17) and positive economic impact (β = −0.34) of tourism, after controlling for common method variance. Despite its limitations due to its cross-sectional design and use of self-report data in the U.S., this study was novel in introducing intellectual humility as an important virtue to be cultivated at the individual level to achieve a holistic approach to sustainable tourism, especially in shaping destination choices. In addition, the study highlights the need to detect common method variance in self-report data via bifactor CFA to avoid erroneous reporting of significant findings, hampering our collective research efforts to address climate change and its impact.

Personality predictors of leadership styles and the self–other agreement problem