Center for Advanced Managment Studies
print
Search
Hinweise zur Datenübertragung bei der Google™ Suche
Language Selection
Breadcrumb Navigation
Content

Prof. Tobias Dennerlein (Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue University, USA)

  • Date: Friday, May 29th, 2026
  • Time: 10:30 am - 12:00 noon
  • Location: Ludwigstr. 28, VG, Room 211b
  • Title: Empowered to Blow the Whistle or Squelched to Look the Other Way? The Interactive Effect of Empowering Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior Climate on Employee Moral Potency and Whistleblowing
  • Abstract: Whistleblowing—the disclosure of illegal, immoral, or illegitimate organizational practices—provides an invaluable public service as it can help avoid societal harm caused by corporate wrongdoing. Yet, organizational scandals persist, and criminal investigations regularly point to leadership practices and organizational climates as key reasons. Although empowering leadership is widely used in today’s flat and team-based organizations, and the agency it promotes could play a key role in the whistleblowing process, its effects on employees’ moral cognitions and ethical conduct remain unclear. Drawing from whistleblowing theory, this study examines whether and why empowering leadership could promote whistleblowing. I argue that empowering leadership increases employee moral potency and, ultimately, whistleblowing. Moreover, I identify employees’ perceptions of their organizations’ unethical pro-organizational behavior climate as a moderator of this effect. I posit that climates endorsing an “ends-justify-the-means” mentality (i.e., a high unethical pro-organizational behavior climate) suppress the positive effects of empowering leadership on moral potency and subsequent whistleblowing. Findings support the proposed conceptual model in three studies employing different methodologies, demonstrating the robustness of the model by contrasting the proposed mediator and moderator with alternative constructs. I discuss the contributions of my research to theory and practice.
Service