Whistleblowing policy disclosure: evidence from an Indian emerging market

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate factors which drive firms to disclose whistleblowing policies in one of the emerging markets, i.e. India.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample of 200 Bombay Stock Exchange-listed Indian firms is analyzed using Tobit regression.

Findings

Promoter shareholding, proportion of independent directors and specific positions like chief ethical officer influence disclosure of whistleblowing policies.

Originality/value

This paper presents the first empirical study where principal-principal conflict theory is extended to explain drivers of whistleblowing policy disclosure and, hence, brings new insights to the literature on whistleblowing policy disclosure.

Citation

Agnihotri, A. and Bhattacharya, S. (2015), "Whistleblowing policy disclosure: evidence from an Indian emerging market", Corporate Governance, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 678-692. https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-05-2014-0057