The relationship between whistleblowing behavior and organizational silence behavior: A case study at a public universty

Whistleblowing can be defined as the disclosure of unethical behavior and events occurring in an organization. In recent years, competition between organizations, enterprises and individuals, both economically and socially, has become an increasing issue. Unfortunately, it is common to see behaviors among individuals and organizations that do not comply with the codes of conduct in order to gain or benefit from the present situation. In order to prevent these situations, which are likely to cause harm to society, organizations and individuals, some managers attach importance to the disclosure of information, and some managers want to cover up the incident with the belief that the incident will cause even greater damage. While this is the case for organizations, for individuals it is seen as a conscientious and virtuous behavior bases entirely on volunteerism and seems dangerous due to the risks it poses. In this study, the relationship between whistleblowing behavior and organizational silence behavior of Munzur University employees is examined. For this purpose, a questionnaire consisting of 2 different scales was applied to 223 people, 78 of whom were academic staff, 94 of whom were administrative staff, 25 of whom were security staff and 26 of whom were cleaning staff, at Munzur University. Using the SPSS program for the 11 hypotheses identified, regression, correlation and ANOVA and t-tests analyses were performed on the survey results. As a result of the research, according to the discrimation tests, it was found that the Whistleblowing levels of employees did not show significant differences according to gender, age, marital status and working year; and the perceptions of silence and disclosure were similar in terms of gender, age, marital status and working year. When participants were examined in terms of administrative duties, educational status and income status, significant differences were found among the sub-dimensions of information disclosure. On the other hand, a negative relationship between the dimensions of silence for the benefit of the organization/ defensive silence and internal whistleblowing; between external whistleblowing and silence accepted as a sub-dimension of organizational silence; a positive relationship between externail whistleblowing and silence for the benefit of the organization have been ascertained.It has been determined that one of the subdimensions of informaton disclosure which is staying neutral has negative relationship with accepted silence and defensive silence; it has a positive relationship with silence for the benefit of the organization.. Finally, results show that the accepted silence dimension from the organizational silence sub-dimensions affects the external whistleblowing level and that the defensive silence and silence for the benefit of the organization affect the level of staying neutral. Key Words: Ethics, Information Disclosure, Organizational Silence