Exploring Whistleblowing Trends Through Bibliometric Analysis: A Global Perspective

Abstract

This research aimed to explore whistleblowing and identify future trends in whistleblowing research by using bibliometric analysis. The data used in this study of 440 documents sourced from 183 journals, books and other sources from 1982 to 2022 obtained from the Scopus database with specific subject areas including economics, econometrics and finance business, and management and accounting. The analysis revealed that the number of published articles related to whistleblowing has steadily increased since 1982, with a peak of articles published in 2022 indicating sustained interest in the topic. This study comprehensively demonstrates that whistleblowing, ethics and fraud are the most commonly studied variables. The study suggests that future research could be strengthened by exploring less commonly used variables to gain a more comprehensive understanding of factors contributing to ethical behaviour and misconduct in organisations.

Keywords

Whistleblowing bibliometric future trends global perspective

Introduction

In recent years, there have been several whistle-blower cases, mostly exposing corruption and fraud at the government level. Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), gained international recognition as a whistle-blower in 2013 when he revealed the wide-reaching surveillance initiatives carried out by the US government (Macaskill & Dance, 2013). Then, as reported by NPR (2022), Chelsea Manning (United States) formerly Bradley Manning, released sensitive military information to WikiLeaks in 2010, blowing the whistle on American military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her actions raised concerns about things like civilian deaths and the lack of transparency in military operations, igniting discussions about government responsibility and openness. In addition, according to The Guardian (2019), Katharine Gun, a former British intelligence officer, revealed US efforts to acquire damaging information on UN Security Council members in an effort to sway their votes on the Iraq War. Her activities triggered discussions about the legitimacy of the war and the function of intelligence organisations on a global scale.

Despite the critical role whistle-blowers play in exposing fraud, those in Indonesia often face significant risks and challenges, such as retaliation, harassment and even imprisonment. For example, a treasurer of Citamu Village in West Java was declared a graft suspect after reporting to the village chief for suspected corruption (Janti & Aqil, 2020). Besides, a notable case of Roni Wijaya being a whistle-blower in the Hambalang corruption case for the Education and Training Centre construction project and National Sports Facilities in West Java also sentenced to 5.5 years in prison (Laluhu, 2020). Then, Stanley Ering was threatened with imprisonment for reporting alleged corruption at Manado State University to the North Sulawesi High Court and the Corruption Eradication Commission. At that time, Stanley opened a case of alleged corruption by the University Rector, Philotus. However, Philotus instead reported Stanley to the North Sulawesi Regional Police and was then charged with Article 311 of the Indonesian Criminal Code, which regulates ‘Defamation’ or ‘Discrediting Someone’s Good Name’ (The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform [ICJR], 2017). These cases serve as examples of the serious risks and challenges faced by whistle-blowers in Indonesia, such as retaliation and legal repercussions.

The increasing frequency of complaints regarding acts of corruption, budget irregularities, and fraud against budget management in the Government of Indonesia has led to the increasing value of state losses (Febrian & Rossieta, 2019; Suta et al., 2021), which resulted in the state losing trillions of rupiahs (ACFE, 2022). This implied that serious reform initiatives could be required to deal with these problems by improving accountability and transparency in government activities and stopping further losses. Whistleblowing is a corporate governance mechanism that increases transparency regarding actions incompatible with company values and allows employees to become whistle-blowers facing their leaders or managers. Nonetheless, many employees are reluctant to become whistle-blowers since they sometimes experience different levels of risk when observing violations, and finally, whistleblowing is not realised (Sarikhani & Ebrahimi, 2022). Therefore, there is a need for better understanding and insight to encourage whistleblowing and reveal mistakes (Mansor, 2018).

Regarding the whistleblowing perspective, people may have diverse viewpoints on whistle-blowers depending on their personal values, beliefs, and experiences. The positive perspective of a whistle-blower is that an organisation can benefit from developing an internal culture of whistleblowing by resolving internal issues to reduce weaknesses like loss of stakeholder trust and/or high-value litigation (Yustina et al., 2022). As highlighted by (Bishop-Monroe et al., 2021), whistle-blowers have exposed organisations that engage in unethical financial practices. When other employees commit fraud and a whistle-blower reveals it to the leadership or employer, it significantly lowers the number of violations (Lin & Tseng, 2022). Without the whistle-blowers’ acts, the public might never have known about the fraudulent and unethical actions, and the organisations involved might have acted up without facing any consequences. Interestingly, some government provides guarantees and bonuses to entice people to become whistle-blowers (Dey et al., 2021). In contrast, a negative perspective on whistle-blowers considered it a threat that will reveal their actions and be known to other parties (Brown et al., 2014; Near & Miceli, 1995). Whistle-blowers may encounter unfavourable responses and disparaging remarks from others, particularly if the context is highly self-relevant (Pacilli et al., 2022; Peters et al., 2011). In this case, the whistle-blowers can cause harm to the company they work for by disclosing private information that could damage its operations, finances, or reputation. This could result in financial losses, legal obligations, and even bankruptcy in extreme circumstances. Consequently, the companies will take actions that make whistle-blowers uncomfortable.

The mechanism for reporting complaints of alleged deviant acts that have occurred or will occur by involving employees who are carried out within the organisation where they work or from outside the organisation can vary depending on the organisation’s policies and procedures (Curtis & Taylor, 2009). When the whistle-blower is not part of the perpetrators of the crimes they reported (Hennequin, 2020), some companies continue to develop whistle-blower reporting hotlines to make it simpler for staff members to expose fraud, waste, or abuse in an organisation (Hess & Broughton, 2014). Furthermore, corporations that collaborate internationally can implement and even enhance whistle-blower security to facilitate accessible communication for reporting acts, including fraud, waste, and abuse within a global organisation (Lewis & Castellino, 2013). The company might collaborate with a third-party provider specialising in whistle-blower hotline services to protect the security of whistle-blower complaints. The provider can uphold tight confidentiality and security standards by encrypting messages and storing data on secure servers.

Whistleblowing represents a complex process that is shaped by a variety of factors. Those factors are often referred to as whistleblowing characteristics. There are five main characteristics that play an important role in determining whether or not a whistle-blower will come forward First, the characteristics of the reporter, related to these determinants, examine the personality characteristics of the reporter, moral judgment, and demographic characteristics. Second, the characteristics of the report recipients examine the characteristics of the individual or individuals receiving the report and the characteristics of the reporting channel. The third is the characteristics of the wrongdoer. This area focuses on the power and credibility of the wrongdoer. Fourth, accounting studies related to the characteristics of error examine the factors that influence organisational reliance on an error and the credibility of the evidence. Fifth, examining the suitability of whistleblowing, organizational perceptions, organizational climate, and organizational structure are key aspects of organizational characteristics. No single mechanism is used exclusively for fraud detection (Dyck et al., 2010). This study uses a bibliometric technique to analyse the literature structure from the researchers. Reviewing and presenting various published works considering the increasing number of studies in this field (Ahmi & Mohamad, 2019).

Bibliometric analysis can provide valuable insights into the development of whistleblowing research, which can help researchers identify areas for further investigation and inform policy and practice. The term ‘bibliometric’ applies mathematical and statistical methods to texts and other forms of communication. It is hoped that it will soon gain acceptance in information science and be used explicitly in all research to measure written communication processes (Pritchard, 1969). This study focuses on bibliometric studies, which will dissect the literature structure from relevant analyses related to whistle-blowers. Bibliometric mapping of peer-to-peer research studies based on economic and business perspectives (Kholidah et al., 2022). The research phase was carried out by taking an inventory of the latest field research and mapping it using the bibliometric metric method (García-Lillo et al., 2023). Bibliometric research will obtain unique things to collaborate between theory and practice. Journals and publishers from various disciplines have published many exceptional articles, so there is an opportunity to use bibliometric techniques to study the nuances of the future by capturing emerging trends (Mukherjee et al., 2022).

Research on bibliometric techniques has been conducted in a variety of scientific fields, including accounting, and information technology, the results of which are web-based electronic accounting applications (e-Accounting) focusing on industry 4.0 applications used in industrial-oriented information and communication technology countries (Rejeb et al., 2022) analyses Scopus or journals indicating publication trends, citations, changes in subject structure, and developments in bibliometric form while also suggesting potential future directions for the journals (Jacsó, 2011; Kumar et al., 2021). The metadata search used can be obtained from Scopus (Umar et al., 2022) WoS (Chen et al., 2022) Dimensions (Alruqi et al., 2018), PubMed (Makkizadeh & Ebrahimi, 2022), Google Scholar (Botelho et al., 2020) and other equivalents.

Unfortunately, the current literature especially research focused on the perspective of whistleblowing with bibliometric study have not fully conducted yet. The lack of bibliometric studies on whistle-blowers suggests a gap in the literature on this topic. It implied that bibliometric methods have not been used extensively to investigate whistle-blowers or that the advantages of doing so have not yet been thoroughly considered by researchers. Therefore, this research aimed to explore a deeper understanding of whistleblowing and its potential future trends. This research is hoped can increase understanding and contribute to advancing theory and significantly contributing to the field under study by revealing the progress of the literature and several trends.

Research Methodology

Data Collection

The research study investigated the prevalence of literature on whistleblowing within the business, management, and accounting fields. A keyword search for ‘whistleblowing’ was performed on a database from Scopus in the form of articles, yielding 2555 results as of early 2023. The search was restricted to articles only, resulting in 452 relevant documents, and most of these documents (446) were sourced from academic journals. An updated count of the results was conducted on 17 March 2023, revealing 440 relevant documents

Data Selection

The collected data are related to the theme, and then selected according to the field of the research plan; this is intended so that the research results are more specific and in-depth in one field. One of the similarities selected is like the same research subject, so it is apple to apple. The development map of the whistleblowing research theme was obtained through the Scopus database export process and analysed using the VOSviewer. The metadata selection method used in this study with a protocol that can be described in the form of a diagram in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Stage of Data Processing.

Figure 1 shows the data collected related to the whistleblowing taken from more than 2555 documents as of 17 March 2023, then selected according to the field of future whistleblowing research plans with specific subject areas including economics, econometrics and business finance, and management and accounting obtained from Scopus totalling 440 metadata.

Data Processing

The collected data from Scopus on the theme of whistleblowing were then summarised into metadata which processed using bibliometric tools. The bibliometric helps map with visualisation forms. Then, descriptive statistical methods were used, and bibliometric analysis was carried out by using R, Biblioshiny, to find out the map from a bibliometric point of view.

Text Cleaning

Before statistically analysing the retrieved articles, each article’s keywords were manually identified to detect and remove any irrelevant Information. Since irrelevant data might influence the findings and result in erroneous conclusions. The text cleaning is also crucial to ensure the validity and accuracy of the statistical analysis which can eventually result in more reliable and meaningful research findings, by carefully screening and removing irrelevant information. As a result, the research process raises the quality and reliability of the information being evaluated

Results and Discussion

The following research findings and results can be obtained after metadata analysis, including preliminary analysis and characterisation of the datasets used. Metadata analysis is a crucial step in the process of obtaining research results and findings. However, before coming to a precise and clear comprehension of the data, the process of processing the metadata undergoes a variety of stages.

Results

Descriptive Analysis

The descriptive analysis includes summarising and characterising the main characteristics of a dataset. This analysis is carried out following the completion of data cleaning since it offers a summary of the key trends and patterns in the data. Table 1 shows the results of a descriptive analysis, which is a type of statistical analysis.

Table 1.

Results of Data Review.

Description	Results
Main information about data
Timespan	1982:2022
Sources (journals, books, etc.)	183
Documents	440
Annual growth rate percent	8.54
Document average age	9.52
Average citations per doc	21.73
References	20420
Document contents
Keywords plus (ID)	362
Author’s keywords (DE)	1112
Authors
Authors	745
Authors of single-authored docs	119
Authors collaboration
Single-authored docs	152
Co-authors per doc	2.18
International co-authorships percent	16.82
Document types
Article	440

The data presented in Table 1 provide information about a specific dataset. The dataset spans a time period from 1982 to 2022 and consists of 440 documents sourced from 183 journals, books, and other sources. The annual growth rate of the dataset is 8.54%, and the average age of the documents is 9.52 years. On average, each document has been cited 21.73 times, and contains 20420 references. The dataset includes 68 Keywords Plus (ID) and 531 Author’s Keywords (DE), and was authored by a total of 359 individuals. Of these authors, 42 contributed to single-authored documents, while 50 documents had co-authored with an average of 2.36 co-authors per document. The dataset also includes international co-authorships at a rate of 19.89%. Finally, all 181 documents in the dataset are categorised as articles. This data description gives an in-depth summary of the key features of the dataset, as well as details on the documents themselves, the authors who contributed to them, and the types of documents included in the dataset.

Relevance

In order to understand the different perspective of whistleblowing, this article examined ten groups of whistleblowing themes, ranging from journals, authors, institutions or affiliates that are most relevant informally. These terms are often used interchangeably to predict the opportunities for writing whistleblowing themes in the future.

The Most Active Journals

The most active journals typically refer to journals that publish a high volume of research articles in a particular field over a given period of time. In this study, the most active journal refers to the journal the that publishes a large number of articles related to whistleblowing within a year. Figure 2 illustrates the categorisation of most active journals based on the volume of publications.

Figure 2.

Distribution of Articles Published Per Year.

The graphic shows the number of articles published per year from 1982 to 2022. Based on the presented data the number of articles published per year fluctuates, with a low of 0 articles published in 1984 and 1986 and a high of 53 articles published in 2022. The number of articles published per year gradually increased from 1982 to 1998, with a sharp increase in the number of articles in 1998 and 1999. The number of articles published per year remained relatively stable from 2000 to 2010, with a peak of 14 articles in 2010. Starting from 2011, the number of articles published per year has been increasing steadily, with a sharp increase in the number of articles in 2018, 2019, and 2020, with a peak of 53 articles published in 2022. Overall, the data suggest an increasing trend in the number of articles published per year, with a sharp increase in recent years, indicating a growing interest in the topic of whistleblowing.

The Most Relevant Source

The most relevant sources identified by VOSviewer are typically those that are highly cited and have a significant impact on the whistleblowing field. Figure 3 lists the top ten of the most relevant sources on the theme of whistleblowing, by the number of documents published by each journal.

Figure 3.

Top 10 Most Relevant Sources.

The data in Figure 3 indicate that Journal of Business Ethics is the most relevant source with 91 published documents, followed by Science and Engineering Ethics and International Journal of Law and Management with 30 and 13 published documents, respectively. The remaining sources in the top 10 are Managerial Auditing Journal, Public Integrity, Behavioral Research in Accounting, American Business Law Journal, Review of Public Personnel Administration, and Accounting and the Public Interest, with five and nine published documents, respectively.

The Dynamics Journal

Understanding source dynamics provides insights on the diversity and breadth of research published in a journal, as well as other factors that may affect the publication and spread of scientific knowledge. Source dynamics in journal publishing simply refers to the analysing of the sources or origins of articles that were published in a particular journal.

Figure 4 represents the number of publications journals over a 10-year period (2013–2022) by providing source dynamics from the top 10 journals. The data reveal that Journal of Business Ethics is a journal that consistently continues to publish whistleblowing themes. The other journals also have relatively consistent publication rates over the years, with slight fluctuations from year to year. These data can be used for analysing trends in whistleblowing and related fields and identifying important journals in this research area.

Figure 4.

Dynamic Journal.

The Most Productive Author

The most productive authors refer to authors who have produced a large number of research works, both in terms of quantity and quality. Productivity can be measured in various ways, such as the number of articles, citations, total link strength, and article fractionalised.

Table 2 presents the ranking of the top 10 productive writers based on four different metrics: the number of documents they have authored, the number of citations they have received, the total link strength of their documents, and the articles fractionalised. The authors in the top 10 are all highly productive and impactful in the theme of whistleblowing, with Lewis D and Vandekerckhove W holding the top two spots in terms of productivity and citation impact.

Table 2.

Most Productive Author.

Rank	Author	Documents	Citations	Total Link Strength	Articles Fractionalised
1	Lewis D.	12	208	30	9.00
2	Vandekerckhove W.	10	232	28	5.58
3	Brink A.G.	7	140	51	2.50
4	Curtis M.B.	7	343	39	2.92
5	Keenan J.P.	6	435	23	5.50
6	Latan H.	6	143	62	1.87
7	Vinten G.	6	38	3	6.00
8	Taylor E.Z.	5	227	34	2.50
9	Chiappetta Jabbour C.J.	5	75	49	1.53
10	Lopes De Sousa Jabbour A.B.	5	75	49	1.53

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

The Most Cited Documents

The most cited documents in a whistleblowing field are those that have had a significant impact on the research and have influenced subsequent research

The data in Table 3 report a list of the most cited documents related to whistleblowing, along with the year of publication, author name, article title, journal name, and citation metrics such as total citations (TC), total citations per year (TCpY), and normalised TC. The article with the highest TC is ‘Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?’ by Dyck et al. (2010) with 725 citations, while the article with the highest TCpY is ‘Positive and negative deviant workplace behaviours: causes, impacts, and solutions’ by Appelbaum et al. (2007) with 11.71 citations per year. The article with the highest normalised TC is ‘From Inaction to External Whistleblowing: The Effect of Organisational Ethical Culture on Employee Responses to Observed Misconduct’ by Kaptein (2011) with a normalised TC of 5.58. Overall, these articles explain the factors that influence whistleblowing behaviour and emphasise the significance of ethical leadership and organisational culture in promoting ethical behaviour in the working place.

Table 3.

Most Cited Documents.

Author	Year	TI	SO	TC	TCpY
Beasley et al. (2009)	2009	Whistleblowing in Public Accounting: Influence of Identity Disclosure, Situational Context, and Personal Characteristics DOI: 10.2308/api.2009.9.1.191	Accounting and the Public Interest	61	4.067
Lewis (2011)	2011	Whistleblowing in A Changing Legal Climate: Is It Time to Revisit Our Approach to Trust and Loyalty at The Workplace? DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8608.2010.01609.x	Business Ethics	49	3.769
Gao & Brink, 2017)	2017	Whistleblowing Studies in Accounting Research: A Review of Experimental Studies on The Determinants of Whistleblowing DOI: 10.1016/j.acclit.2017.05.001	Journal of Accounting Literature	48	6.857
Taylor and Curtis (2013)	2013	Whistleblowing In Audit Firms: Organisational Response and Power Distance DOI: 10.2308/bria-50415	Behavioral Research in Accounting	46	4.182
Brink et al. (2013)	2013	The Effect of Evidence Strength and Internal Rewards on Intentions to Report Fraud in The Dodd-Frank Regulatory Environment. DOI: 10.2308/ajpt-50449	Auditing	45	4.091
Kaplan et al. (2010)	2010	The Effect of Social Confrontation on Individuals’ Intentions to Internally Report Fraud. DOI: 10.2308/bria.2010.22.2.51	Behavioral Research in Accounting	44	3.143
Curtis et al. (2012)	2012	A Cross-Cultural Study of The Influence of Country of Origin, Justice, Power Distance, And Gender on Ethical Decision Making. DOI: 10.2308/jiar-10213	Journal of International Accounting Research	40	3.333
Fasterling and Lewis (2014)	2014	Leaks, Legislation and Freedom of Speech: How Can the Law Effectively Promote Public-Interest Whistleblowing? DOI: 10.1111/j.1564-913X.2014.00197.x	International Labour Review	21	2.1
Brink et al. (2017)	2017	The Public Company Whistleblowing Environment: Perceptions of A Wrongful Act and Monetary Attitude. DOI: 10.2308/apin-51681	Accounting and the Public Interest	20	2.857

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

The Most Relevant Affiliations

Affiliations are typically associated with authors and refer to their institutional or organisational affiliations, such as universities, research institutions, or companies. Figure 5 provided the number of articles published by various universities or university-affiliated institutions.

Figure 5.

Most Relevant Affiliation.

Figure 5 lists the affiliations and the number of articles published by each affiliation. Based on the shown data, it appears that Universiti Teknologi Mara has published the highest number of articles (19) among the listed affiliations. Arizona State University and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu follow closely behind with 12 and 11 articles, respectively. It is also notable that the affiliations listed in the table represent a diverse range of institutions, including universities from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia.

Corresponding Author’s Country

Corresponding authors’ country refers to the country where the corresponding author of a research paper or manuscript resides. The correspondence author is usually the person who is responsible for communicating with the journal editor or publisher regarding the publication of the manuscript. The level of country collaboration of corresponding authors can be measured by looking at the number of publications where the corresponding author comes from a particular country and has collaborated with authors from other countries. Single-country publication (SCP) known as intra-country refers to research publications where all authors are based in the same country. This implies that the research collaboration is restricted to the authors from a single country or research institution within that country. In contrast, multi-country publication (MCP) also called as inter-country denotes a research publication in which authors from two or more different countries collaborate on a research project.

Based on the data in Table 4, it can be inferred that the United States and the United Kingdom are the leading countries in the number of published articles and frequency index. The United States ranks first in research productivity, with 104 published articles, a frequency of 0.236, and an average of 36.12 citations per article. The United Kingdom follows with 42 published articles, a frequency of 0.095, and an average of 17.88 citations per article. Malaysia ranks third with 19 published articles, a frequency of 0.043, and an average of 5.58 citations per article.

Table 4.

Corresponding Author, the Intra-country (SCP) and Inter-country (MCP) During 1982–2022.

Rank	Country	Articles	Frequency	SCP	MCP	MCP Ratio	TC	Average Article Citations
1	USA	104	0.236	96	8	0.077	3756	36.12
2	United Kingdom	42	0.095	33	9	0.214	751	17.88
3	Malaysia	19	0.043	15	4	0.211	106	5.58
4	Australia	16	0.036	11	5	0.313	587	36.69
5	Indonesia	15	0.034	10	5	0.333	155	10.33
6	India	12	0.027	10	2	0.167	52	4.33
7	Canada	10	0.023	7	3	0.3	435	43.50
8	China	8	0.018	3	5	0.625	218	27.25
9	Netherlands	7	0.016	5	2	0.286	298	42.57
10	Germany	5	0.011	5	0	0	18	3.60

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

Figure 6 highlights both the intra-country (SCP) and inter-country (MCP) collaboration indices. A higher level of intra-country collaboration (SCP) indicates a strong research culture within a country, while a higher level of inter-country collaboration (MCP) indicates a country’s ability to collaborate with researchers from other countries and share knowledge and resources. The United Kingdom has a higher inter-country collaboration index (MCP) than the United States, which indicates that researchers from the United Kingdom collaborate more frequently with researchers from other countries. Malaysia, Australia, and Indonesia also had significant numbers of publications, but with a stronger focus on intra-country collaboration (SCP). The data also showed that China could improve its inter-country collaboration index (MCP), indicating that there may be room for improvement in terms of collaboration with researchers from other countries. Additionally, Germany had a relatively low level of research collaboration both within the country and with researchers from other countries during the time period.

Figure 6.

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

World Collaboration

World collaboration in research articles commonly refers to the collaboration between authors from different countries on a scientific or academic publication. Collaboration between researchers from diverse countries can result in more varied perspectives, greater access to resources, and a larger pool of expertise, all of which contribute to the quality and impact of a publication.

Figure 7 shows the frequency of collaboration between countries in conducting research about whistleblowing. Based on the colour of the frequency information, it can be seen that the stronger the colour indicates that more authors are collaborating. On the contrary, the lighter the colour, the less the collaboration of authors between the countries. The United Kingdom has the most collaborations with other countries, with 18 instances of collaboration. The collaborations are mainly with Australia, Korea, and France. The United States follows with 17 instances of collaboration, mainly with China, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Other countries with notable collaborations include Malaysia, Indonesia, and Canada.

Figure 7.

Geographical Distribution Based on Authors’ Collaboration.

Most Global Cited Article

One way to determine the most globally cited document is by looking at the total number of citations and the total number of citations per year. By analysing the total number of citations and the number of citations per year, it is possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the document on its respective field and the extent to which it influences future research.

Table 5 provides information on academic articles related to various fields, along with their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and the total number of times they have been cited. Based on these data, it is possible to compare the influence or impact of each paper in terms of how many times it was cited and how often it continues to be cited over time. For instance, the paper by Dyck A in the Journal of Finance has the highest number of citations (725), indicating that it has been widely referenced in another research. However, the paper by Kaptein M in the Journal of Business Ethics has a high total number of citations (178) and a relatively high number of citations per year (13.69).

Table 5.

Most Global Cited Article, Total Citation (TC) and Total Citation per Year (TCpY).

Paper Article	DOI	TC	TCpY
Dyck et al. (2010) J Finance	10.1111/j.1540-6261.2010.01614.x	725	51.79
Barnett et al. (1996) J Bus Ethics	10.1007/BF00412815	241	8.61
Jubb (1999) J Bus Ethics	10.1023/A:1005922701763	225	9.00
Appelbaum et al. (2007) Corp Gov	10.1108/14720700710827176	199	11.71
Kaptein (2011) J Bus Ethics	10.1007/s10551-010-0591-1	178	13.69
Sims & Keenan (1998) J Bus Ethics	10.1023/A:1005763807868	167	6.42
Park & Blenkinsopp (2009) J Bus Ethics	10.1007/s10551-008-9788-y	137	9.13
Park et al. (2005) J Bus Ethics	10.1007/s10551-004-5366-0	133	7.00
Seifert et al. (2010) Account Organ Soc	10.1016/j.aos.2010.09.002	123	8.79
Fritzsche (1988) J Macromark	10.1177/027614678800800205	120	3.33
Berry (2004) Employee Responsib Rights J	10.1023/B:ERRJ.0000017516.40437.b1	119	5.95

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

Most Cited References

The most cited references in this study are those articles about whistleblowing that have been most cited by other researchers in their research. The number of citations is a measure of a research article’s influence and impact within its field. The more an article is cited, the more it is considered relevant, important and influential.

Table 6.

Most Cited References.

Authors	Title	Year	Journal	Citations	Total Link Strength
Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005)	Whistleblowing in Organisations: An Examination of Correlates of Whistleblowing Intentions, Actions, and Retaliation	2005	Journal of Business Ethics, 62 (3), Pp. 277–297	59	306
Near and Miceli (1985)	Organisational Dissidence: The Case of Whistle-Blowing	1985	Journal of Business Ethics, 4 (1), Pp. 1–16	58	278
Dozier and Miceli (1985)	Potential Predictors of Whistle-Blowing: A Prosocial Behaviour Perspective	1985	Academy of Management Review, 10 (4), Pp. 823–836	33	221
Near and Miceli (1985)	Organisational Dissidence: The Case of Whistle-Blowing	1985	Journal of Business Ethics, 4, Pp. 1–16	33	80
Near and Miceli (1996)	Whistle-Blowing: Myth and Reality	1986	Journal of Management, 22 (3), Pp. 507–526	26	144
(Miceli et al. (2009)	A Word to The Wise: How Managers and Policy-Makers Can Encourage Employees to Report Wrongdoing	2009	Journal of Business Ethics, 86 (3), Pp. 379–396	25	167
Gundlach et al. (2003)	Martinko, M.J., The Decision to Blow the Whistle: A Social Information Processing Framework	2003	Academy of Management Review, 28 (1), Pp. 107–123	25	159
Brennan and Kelly (2007)	A Study of Whistleblowing among Trainee Auditors	2007	The British Accounting Review, 39 (1), Pp. 61–87	24	128
Ajzen (1991)	The Theory of Planned Behaviour	1991	Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 50 (2), Pp. 179–211	23	136
Miceli and Near (1984)	The Relationships Among Beliefs, Organisational Position, and Whistle-Blowing Status: A Discriminant Analysis	1984	Academy of Management Journal, 27 (4), Pp. 687–705	23	124

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

Table 6 illustrates that this whistleblowing theme is referenced by a number of articles. The data provide the list of the most cited references on the topic of whistleblowing in organisations, along with the year of publication, journal, number of citations, and total link strength. The article by Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2005 has the highest number of citations (59) and total link strength (306), followed by the 1985 article by Near and Miceli, also in the Journal of Business Ethics, with 58 citations and 278 total link strengths. Both of these articles appear to be the most influential and frequently referenced works in the field of whistleblowing research. Other widely cited works include a 1985 article by Dozier and Miceli in the Academy of Management Review, which proposed potential predictors of whistleblowing. The data reveal that the field of whistleblowing research has a relatively small number of highly influential works that have shaped the discussion surrounding this topic. The future author is suggested to analyse, define, develop and produce the dominant future knowledge trends under investigation, the sub-themes become extensive forming new interconnected networks, and may also be disconnected.

Inter-author Citation

Inter-author citation refers to the use of citations in research article that refer to sources written by multiple authors. It is the type of citation that recognises the contribution of multiple authors to a particular idea or concept.

Figure 8 indicates that the authors Mesmer-Magnus and J.r., Viswesvaran, C. are connected by lines with other researchers. Bibliometrics can also portray the state of the art of citation of whistleblowing themes. The size of the circle represents the number of citations, such as The circle of Mesmer-Magnus, J.r., Viswesvaran, C is larger than the others, meaning that the article is widely cited by other researchers, then the line connecting the attachment of citations used between researchers. The length of the line illustrates the time span and the light colour illustrates the strong attachment between researchers.

Figure 8.

Source: Data generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

Word Cloud

A word cloud is a useful tool for visualising and understanding large data collections, and can help to quickly identify key themes and concepts in a given context. The word cloud can indicate the most common or important words associated with whistleblowing. In a word cloud, the size of each word represents its frequency or importance in the data set. The larger the word, the more frequently it appears in the data set or the more important it is in the context of the analysis. Conversely, the less frequently the word appears in the context of the analysis, the smaller the size of the word.

Those words in word cloud are commonly associated with whistleblowing and reflect the important role that whistle-blowers play in exposing wrongdoing and promoting transparency and accountability. Figure 9 shows the words ‘whistle-blowers’, ‘intentions’, ‘ethical’, ‘fraud’, ‘reporting’, ‘internal’, and ‘whistle’ are larger than other words in the cloud. This indicates that these concepts are more frequently mentioned or more central to the analysis than other words. In contrast, the words ‘perspective’, ‘moral’, and ‘behaviour’ are smaller in the cloud, suggesting that these concepts are less frequently mentioned or less central to the analysis than other words.

Figure 9.

Source: Generated from R analysis (2023).

Keywords Plus Tree Map

A tree map is a type of visualisation that displays hierarchical data as nested rectangles. In a tree map, the largest rectangles represent the most important categories or subgroups, while smaller rectangles represent less important categories or subgroups.

Figure 10.

Source: Generated from Biblioshiny analysis (2023).

According to the data in Figure 10, the word ‘whistleblowing’ has the largest rectangles since it appears most frequently in the metadata, occurring 228 times, which represents 37% of the total metadata. This indicates that the concept of whistleblowing is a key focus of the analysis. Following by keywords ‘whistleblowing’, ‘ethics’, ‘fraud’, and ‘whistle-blowers’ are also frequently occurring, with 47, 27, and 18 instances, respectively. This suggests that these concepts are also important within the context of the dataset or analysis. However, the other keywords mentioned in the figure are less frequently occurring, with only 2% or less of the metadata related to each keyword. This indicates that these concepts may be less important or less central to the analysis than the concepts of whistleblowing, ethics, fraud, and whistle-blowers.

Thematic Map: Strategic Diagram

A thematic map of whistleblowing research can be helpful in predicting future research trends and themes in this area. By thoroughly analysing existing research and identifying the most frequently studied topics and areas of interest, researchers can gain insight into gaps in knowledge and potential pathways for future exploration.

The thematic map in Figure 11 illustrates the current research, which can be used as a prediction of future research. Whistleblowing, ethics and fraud are the main variables that have been used in previous studies, the variables of scientific misconduct, research misconduct, and scientific integrity are still a minority, while the variables of ethical leadership, moral courage, and assessment are rarely used. In the future, research can combine these variables. So that further researchers can examine the theme of whistleblowing with fewer variables, it can even be developed with other variables that no one has examined so that it becomes a novelty of originality in their research.

Figure 11.

Source: Generated from Biblioshiny analysis (2023).

Journal, Author and Keyword Parameters

The relationship between parameters with bibliometrics in Figure 12 helps to illustrate the relationship among parameters. The three parameters that will display the top 20 fields include: journal publisher on the left field, author on the centre field, and keywords on the right field. The results show that Vandekerckhove W’s article was published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Besides, Brink’s article was published in several journals, including Journal of Business Ethics, Behavior Research in Accounting, Journal Auditing, and Accounting and The Public Interest. Then, Vandekerckhove’ s article was published in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Figure 12.

Source: Generated from Biblioshiny analysis (2023).

Figure 13 depicts three parameters showing the top 20 fields such as author in the centre area, affiliation in the left area and keywords in the right area. The results show Vandekerckhove W and Lewis D as affiliated authors from several universities, including University of Greenwich, Middlesex University, and Chung Ang University. Moreover, Hasim Ha is associated as an author affiliated with Universiti Malaysia Terengganu.

Figure 13.

Source: Generated from Biblioshiny analysis (2023).

Figure 14 describes the whistleblowing research utility variable. The yellow colour means that this variable was published around 2020, and there is no line connecting directly to the keyword whistleblowing, but it must go through the keyword’s ethical leadership or business ethics, then there is an ethical leadership or business ethics line to whistleblowing. Whistleblowing intention as an action influenced to disclose illegal, immoral, or illegitimate practices by organisational members to people or organisations. Various factors influence whistleblowing intentions, including the perceived seriousness of the violation, potential predictors and correlates of whistleblowing behaviour and retaliation. In essence, it is very related to whistle-blowers, so that Whistleblowing intention can be made into originality in further research.

Figure 14.

Source: Generated from VOSviewer analysis (2023).

Discussion

Exploring Whistleblowing Trends Through Bibliometric Analysis

In this study, a bibliometric analysis regarding whistleblowing has been conducted. This analysis allowed us to highlight the following remarkable findings:

There has been a gradual increase in the number of published articles related to whistleblowing every year since 1982 up to 2022. This indicates that there has been a sustained interest in the topic of whistleblowing and its various aspects over the past four decades. The increase in published articles on whistleblowing also suggests that there has been a growing interest among researchers, academics, and other professionals to study and understand the phenomenon of whistleblowing.

The Journal of Business Ethics is the most authoritative source and the most prominent and relevant source on the topic of whistleblowing, as it has published the highest number of documents (91) related to this subject and researchers, academics, and other professionals in the field may consider this journal as a reliable and informative source for their work.

Lewis D as the most productive author on whistleblowing indicates that his works have been widely cited, reviewed, and acknowledged by peers in the field. Being the most productive author on whistleblowing also indicates that Lewis D has conducted extensive research and analysis on the subject, contributing to the existing knowledge and understanding of whistleblowing.

Curtis MB’s articles as the most cited document which have been cited multiple times by other authors, even though Curtis Mb has published fewer articles overall. In particular, Curtis Mb’s article ‘Whistleblowing in Public Accounting: Influence of Identity Disclosure, Situational Context, and Personal Characteristics,’ published in the journal Accounting and The Public Interest, was cited by 61 other authors in 2009. This suggests that the article made a significant contribution to the scholarly discourse on the topic of whistleblowing, influencing other researchers and academics in the field.

The United States has the highest rank, with 104 articles published on the topic of whistleblowing. However, the United Kingdom has a higher inter-country collaboration index (MCP) than the United States, which indicates that researchers from the United Kingdom collaborate more frequently with researchers from other countries. China also may improve its inter-country collaboration index (MCP), indicating that there is room for improvement in terms of collaboration with researchers from other countries.

The most frequent collaborations are between the United States and China with eight collaborations, followed by the United States and Canada with five collaborations, and the United Kingdom and Australia and the United Kingdom and Korea with five collaborations each.

The most cited document in the table is ‘Dyck et al. (2010), J Finance’ with a total citation count of 725. The article was published in the Journal of Finance, one of the leading academic journals in the field of finance. The paper examines the impact of board of director gender diversity on firm performance in a sample of Canadian firms. The high citation count of this article suggests that the topic of board diversity and its impact on firm performance continues to be a relevant and important area of research in the field of finance and corporate governance.

The most cited article is ‘Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005), Journal of Business Ethics’ with 59 citations and a total link strength of 306. The paper investigates the factors that influence whistleblowing intentions, actions, and retaliation in organisations. The authors find that individual, situational, and organisational factors can affect employees’ willingness to blow the whistle on misconduct.

The words ‘whistle-blower’, ‘intention’, ‘ethical’, ‘fraud’, ‘reporting’, ‘internal’, and ‘whistle’ were more than the other words in the cloud. This indicates that these concepts are mentioned more often or are more important in the analysis compared to other words. In contrast, the words ‘perspective’, ‘moral’, and ‘behaviour’ are smaller in size in the cloud, indicating that these concepts are mentioned less frequently or are less important in the analysis compared to other words.

Based on the tree map, the word ‘whistleblowing’ appears most frequently in the metadata, occurring 228 times, which represents 37% of the total metadata. Whistleblowing has the largest rectangles, which indicates that the concept of whistleblowing is a key focus of the analysis.

Based on the thematic map, previous studies have mainly focused on variables such as whistleblowing, ethics, and fraud, with variables such as scientific misconduct, research misconduct, and scientific integrity being used less frequently. Other variables such as ethical leadership, moral courage, and assessment are even less commonly used. However, future research could be strengthened by combining these variables to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that contribute to ethical behaviour and misconduct in organisations.

Over all, this bibliometric analysis provides valuable insights into the trends and patterns of research on whistleblowing. The sustained increase in the number of published articles on whistleblowing over the past four decades suggests that the topic remains relevant and important in various fields. There are a number of possible reasons for this trend of increased interest and research on whistleblowing. One of the reasons could be that there are more high-profile whistleblowing cases in recent years, which have drawn attention to the importance of whistleblowing in exposing wrongdoing, promoting transparency, and holding individuals and organisations accountable. The whistle-blowers who speak out against observed violations generally put themselves at considerable risk, including loss of income and career opportunities, and even imprisonment (Anvari et al., 2019). As a result, there might be a growing recognition of the need to protect whistle-blowers and provide them with the necessary support and incentives to come forward. A recent multi-country field study highlighted the key determinants of whistleblowing within government agencies (Latan et al., 2023).

Collaboration is an important aspect of research, as it enables the exchange of ideas and the pooling of resources and expertise (Castañer & Oliveira, 2020). Collaborative whistleblowing can have important functions for the regulation of moral and legal conduct (Anvari et al., 2019). While the most frequent collaborations are between the United States and China, the United States and Canada, and the United Kingdom and Australia/Korea, there is still room for improvement in terms of collaboration with researchers from other countries, especially for China. By collaborating with researchers from other countries, researchers can broaden their perspectives, gain new insights, and strengthen the quality and impact of their research. Therefore, researchers should look for opportunities to collaborate, such as international conferences or joint research projects, to improve the quality and relevance of their work. Furthermore, the ability to collaborate with other researchers and stakeholders in the field of whistleblowing has also given contribution (Mannion et al., 2018). By forging partnerships and networks with others in the field, they are able to leverage their collective expertise and resources to achieve more significant and meaningful outcomes.

To improve future research on whistleblowing, researchers can consider integrating important variables that have not been explored in depth in previous studies. One such variable is the cultural context in which whistleblowing occurs. While previous research has explored the individual, organisational, and legal factors that influence whistleblowing, there has been limited attention to how cultural norms and values shape whistleblowing behaviour. Additionally, more attention could be paid to the role of technology and social media in facilitating or hindering whistleblowing, as well as the ethical implications of whistleblowing in various industries and professions. The future research on whistleblowing related to economic, finance, and accounting can focus on antecedent factors of whistleblowing in organisations and how whistleblowing can act as accounting and internal controls to prevent fraud and wrongdoing (Zakaria, 2015).

Limitations and Future Research

Like any other research, even this research has its limitations, this research only uses data from Scopus; future suggestions can compare with metadata from WoS. Future whistle-blower research can take sources based on the collection of literature that has been reviewed. The results of the thematic map indicate the relationship between the theme of whistleblowing and other keywords that can be further research, such as ethical leadership, moral courage, and assessment variables. Other keywords that appear with bibliometric VOSviewer, namely whistleblowing intention, can also be examined in future research because there is no direct line connecting it to whistleblowing, meaning that there has been no research related to the effect of whistleblowing intention on whistleblowing.

Conclusions

The bibliometric analysis was applied in this study, to uncover previous research on the theme of whistleblowing towards future trends. The metadata was retrieved from Scopus, consisting of 440 articles and references that were published from 1982 to 2022. Bibliometric processing of metadata showed that the first article on whistleblowing was published in 1982. In summary, the bibliometric analysis on whistleblowing reveals that there has been a sustained interest in the topic over the past four decades, with a gradual increase in published articles every year since 1982 and it continued to increase to its peak in 2022. The Journal of Business Ethics is the most authoritative source and Lewis D is the most productive author on whistleblowing. The United States has the highest number of published articles, while the United Kingdom has a higher inter-country collaboration index (MCP). The most cited document and article provide insights into board diversity and factors influencing whistleblowing intentions and actions. The analysis also reveals the importance of variables such as scientific misconduct, research misconduct, and scientific integrity in future research on whistleblowing and ethical behaviour in organisations.

We hope that by disseminating these findings, we can greatly advance the corpus of knowledge on whistleblowing while also offering insightful information to researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers. This thorough examination provides firms looking to improve their ethical cultures and governance practices with useful advice in addition to deepening academic awareness of the field’s historical evolution and contemporary trends. Our study also acts as a global resource for policymakers, guiding the creation of efficient whistleblowing laws and safeguards and highlighting the ongoing importance of whistleblowing in modern society. By doing this, we hope to encourage accountability, moral behaviour, and social responsibility among academics, businesspeople, and government officials, ultimately fostering a more morally upright society.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Supendi Supendi

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