The Degree Of Whistleblowing Intention And Its Determinants Among Halal Food Manufacturing Employees

Abstract

Any fraud or wrongdoing that occurs in the halal food industry can have a severe impact on the safety and integrity of halal food products. Whistleblowing is one of the methods that can be used to combat fraudulent halal food and food safety issues. Some illegal, unsafe, or unethical behaviour may not be discovered by top management or Halal authorities. The safety and integrity of Halal food industry depend on the honesty of the food producers. Hence, whistleblowing is encouraged and should be practiced to counter the possibility of Halal food fraud occurrence. The purpose of this research is to determine the level of whistleblowing intention among employees of Halal certified food manufacturing companies and assess the level of factors influencing this intention (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, perceived organizational support, religious obligation, knowledge, personal cost reporting, personal responsibility, and seriousness of wrongdoing). The survey was collected among 210 of employees of Halal certified food manufacturing companies in Selangor via a structured questionnaire. The results revealed that the level of whistleblowing intention among employees is very good and most means scores of the factors influencing employee’s decision to whistleblow are positive and favourable. The low mean score for personal cost reporting suggests minimal perceived personal costs associated with whistleblowing. Recommendations to implement whistleblowing system as food fraud prevention needs to be explored as employees’ intention was positive. Suggestions are also presented to ensure that reporting any wrongdoing within companies has a positive effect in preventing such incident.