The results in this chapter are based primarily on the employee survey. As outlined in Chapters 1 and 2, respondents were asked to nominate the most serious type of wrongdoing for which they had direct evidence, with direct evidence defined as ‘something that you personally observed, experienced or was formally reported to you’. Participants were then asked a number of questions about that wrongdoing and whether they reported it. The employee survey also contained questions about the employee’s organisational experiences and perceptions.

In the previous chapter, and in later chapters, many of the analyses focus on public interest whistleblowing by excluding those respondents for whom the most serious type of wrongdoing falls into the category of ‘personnel and workplace grievances’. In this chapter, however, it is useful to include all the wrongdoing types offered by the employee survey—for comparison and because of the conclusions this ultimately supports about the need for whistleblowing procedures to reflect a broader commitment to organisational justice. Key differences between the major wrongdoing categories are nevertheless shown for particular results.

For the current analyses, participants were divided into three main groups of employees who observed wrongdoing and: 1) did not report it (non-reporters: n = 3125); 2) reported it as part of their role as defined in Chapter 2 (role reporters: n = 619); and 3) reported it outside their role (non-role reporters: n = 1497). This group of non-role reporters corresponds most closely with the whistleblowing definition used elsewhere in this book, although for the reasons just given, in this chapter, it also includes employees who reported ‘personnel and workplace grievances’.

The three groups were compared on a range of personal and situational variables, using MANOVA and Chi-square statistical procedures as appropriate. To facilitate readability, statistical results are not reported in detail and only findings for which there is a statistically significant difference (p < 0.01) are shown (indicated in tables with a tick: ✓).