To have or not to have a whistleblowing system : A qualitative study on the incentives of implementing or not implementing whistleblowing systems in Swedish listed companies

Abstract: Due to the highly publicized corporate scandals in the 1990s and the early 2000s, whistleblowing systems to control misconducts have become increasingly important for organizational management. Even though many organizations have implemented whistleblowing systems as part of their internal control; there are no fundamental theories that explains the incentives for the implementation in Swedish listed companies. Furthermore, there are still companies that do not have whistleblowing systems. Our aim is to describe the incentives for organizations to implement a whistleblowing system, as well as the incentives not to implement a whistleblowing system. The theories and concepts applied in this study are the concepts of the legitimacy theory, risk management, and the Personal Data Act. We conducted the study through five face-to-face interviews and one phone interview, with Swedish listed companies. We choose six different companies from different business segments; four of the companies had a whistleblowing system, while two of them did not. The findings showed that the incentives for companies to implement a system was according to the legitimacy theory and risk management, while the incentive not to implement a whistleblowing system was for one of the companies, the PDA, and for the other company, proactive measurements.