Do transformational-oriented leadership and transactional-oriented leadership have an impact on whistle-blowing attitudes? A longitudinal examination conducted in US federal agencies

ABSTRACT

The benefits of effective leadership practices have often been examined. However, little is known about how these practices impact the perceptions of agency employees regarding whistle-blowing. For instance, only two cross-sectional studies were found to examine an association between transformational leadership (the most often studied leadership practice) and whistle-blowing attitudes. To extend these studies, we examined the relationship between transformational-oriented leadership behaviours and whistle-blowing attitudes using panel data. The findings revealed that transformational-oriented leadership increased the extent to which employees in agencies felt they could disclose wrongdoing without facing retaliation. Transactional-oriented leadership was also found to have a positive effect on these whistle-blowing behaviours; however, the effect size was smaller. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed in the article.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformational leadership
• transactional leadership
• whistle-blowing attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This view concerning the relationship between transactional leadership and whistle-blowing was provided by an anonymous reviewer.

2. This proposition was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.

3. This quote can be found at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/employee-surveys/#url=Governmentwide-Results.

4. The change was four points because the response categories ranged from one to five.

5. The two main types of statistical techniques used to examine panel data are fixed effects and random effects (Gujarati 2003). To determine which one was most appropriate, we conducted a Hausman test. This test rejected the random effects model in favour of the fixed effects model. More specifically, the random effects model is not appropriate because it will produce biased results. Therefore, the fixed effect technique was employed.

6. A Breusch–Pagan/Cook–Weisberg test was conducted to determine if heteroscedasticity was serious in each of the three models. It suggests that heteroscedasticity does not affect the models. Nevertheless, robust standard errors are still used in each of the models. Finally, variance inflation factors were obtained and they were well below 3.6 (Kline 2011), indicating that multicollinearity was not serious.

7 The post-estimation technique tested whether the transformational-oriented leadership scale was equal to the transactional-oriented leadership scale. The test revealed that the two scales were not equal. This suggests that transformational-oriented leadership had a larger impact.

8. Power theories posit that individuals with substantial power are more likely to have higher whistle-blowing attitudes because they fear retaliation less than those who have less power (e.g. Miceli, Near, and Dworkin 2008). That none of the personal characteristics were statistically significant in the final model means that no support was found for these theories. A possible explanation could be that personal characteristics do not have a direct effect on whistle-blowing attitudes. Research should seek to examine intervening variables that relate to power to determine if personal characteristics increase power, which in turn increases perceived ease in blowing the whistle.

9. US OPM includes items regarding these leadership practices because it wants to track how agencies are doing against these benchmarks (see http://www.fedview.opm.gov/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Gerard Caillier

James Gerard Caillier is an Assistant Professor of political Science at University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. His teaching and research interests include public management, performance management, and public policy. His articles have appeared in leading public administration journals.

Yongjin Sa

Yongjin Sa recently graduated from University of Baltimore. His teaching and research interests include public management and strategic management.