The Mediating Role of Whistleblowing Practice between Types of Audit and Effectiveness of Public Sector Audit

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to empirically analyze the mediating role of whistleblowing practice in the relationship between types of audit and its effectiveness in the context of public sector organisations. The paper is using data collected by self-administered survey targeting a convenience sample of 500 public internal auditors in Malaysia. The empirical analysis was carried out by estimating Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The key finding is that the practice of whistleblowing can act as a mediator between types of audit and effectiveness of public sector audit. Thus, whistleblowing practice can be said to play a more important role in the government sector to ensure the survival of the sustainability of the government. Although the study offers empirical evidence from a relatively large and representative of different types of public sector organisations, the specificity of the context should be noted. In particular, public organisations, while aiming to serve the best public service delivery to the citizens, somehow compete with the private sectors who aims to maximize their profit. Clearly, studies on the mediating role of whistleblowing practice in private organisations would be an important next step. Furthermore, researchers should use qualitative research to complement the quantitative findings. The novel contribution of the study lies in the focus on whistleblowing practice as a mediator in the government sector. While previous research has shown that types of audit is related to the effectiveness of public sector audit, an empirical analysis of the relationship between the types of audit, whistleblowing practice and effectiveness of public sector audit had not been undertaken.