Whistleblowing on food fraud: Analysing consumer whistleblowing intentions in the United Kingdom through the lens of the development of the whistleblowing triangle and theory of planned behaviour.

Abstract

Whistleblowing is a topic of interest that has attracted great global attention from various stakeholders in many countries worldwide including the United Kingdom. At its core, whistleblowing has been established as one of the most effective ways to tackle unethical practices, fraud, and other illegal engagements in organisations. Whistleblowing can be explained as the action an individual takes to disclose wrongful practices or unethical practices in a firm. It can be conducted internally or externally by the individual. The reason behind disclosing this information is to obtain corrective actions from the respective parties. However, blowing the whistle is risky as the whistle blower might encounter threats, retaliation or even job loss for disclosing the information. Therefore, countries need to establish whistleblowing protection legislation and companies to create robust channels for reporting unethical practices. In the United Kingdom, the Public Interest Disclosure Act was established for the protection of whistle blowers. Since its creation, various amendments have been made and policy agencies have established policies to better protect whistle blowers. However, whistleblowing is still an action individual are reluctant to undertake. As stated above whistleblowing has been used to tackle various unethical practices. Previous whistleblowing studies have only dealt with addressing corporate fraud or financial fraud. Researchers have created models to address corporate fraud or financial fraud. However, most studies have neglected to use whistleblowing to address food fraud. Despite food fraud cases increasing globally. This justifies the need to conduct research with regard to the whistleblowing model and food fraud. This research aims to create a whistleblowing model by incorporating the theory of planned behaviour and the development of the whistleblowing triangle. This model will be used to understand factors that led consumers to report unethical food practices. As stated above whistleblowing is still an action that individuals are reluctant to undertake. Our study will try to understand which factors will lead consumers to report unethical food practices. This research sheds light on the whistleblowing literature as it will develop a whistleblowing triangle and theory of planned behaviour to create a model to address food fraud. The incorporation of these two models will help us understand consumer whistleblowing intention, specifically in the United Kingdom. On the same token, this research is unique as it uses consumers as a sample in the area of whistleblowing, previous research has focused on using employees, managers, and internal auditors. The use of consumers in the whistleblowing literature relating to food fraud is significant because consumers are very important stakeholders in the food supply chain as they are the end users or consumers of the goods. Furthermore, consumers have the power and authority to notice wrongdoing and report it. Lastly, consumers will be more inclined to take a keen interest in the topic of food fraud and whistleblowing as it directly affects their health should a company engage in food fraud, likewise, these consumers are sacrificing scarce resources in the form of money for this food therefore, they would be further inclined to ensure their resources are not being exploited by supply of fraudulent food. With the ongoing food frauds taking place consumers have now become aware of the right procedures or practices with regards to food production. As a result, they become key factors in preventing food fraud. To understand consumer whistleblowing intention in the United Kingdom a survey was provided to consumers. The study obtained 514 respondents of which 221 were male and 291 were female. Our study highlights that ethical responsibility is positively and significantly related to brand loyalty, barriers to whistleblowing are negatively and significantly related to brand loyalty, ethical responsibility is positively and significantly related to social support, barriers to whistleblowing are positively and significantly related to social support, social support is positively and significantly related to brand loyalty, and barriers to whistleblowing is positively and insignificantly related to ethical responsibility. These findings indicated consumer whistleblowing intention. We now understand what will lead consumers to report unethical food practices in the United Kingdom. In addition, this study has provided robust managerial implications.