Empowering Whistleblowing Policy within Public Listed Companies: Current Practice in Malaysia

Abstract

Whistleblowing is an act of disclosing any unethical or questionable act within an organization by disclosing them to individuals, the public or authorities that could influence the wrongdoing. It became an important part of the corporate governance process as such action would benefit society and the organization. With the increase in whistleblowing cases involving publicly listed companies (PLCs) by the mass media in Malaysia, there is a dearth of information on to what extent these PLCs manage whistleblowing matters. As a general practice, albeit not compulsory, many publicly listed companies disclose whistleblowing statements in their annual report. As this aspect of corporate governance for the employees is still unexplored, this study purports to explore the form of disclosure on whistleblowing policy by publicly listed companies in Malaysia for the financial year ending 2021. This study is a content analysis of 918 annual reports of companies listed in Malaysia. The findings reveal that most of the companies disclosed matters relating to whistleblowing policies in their Statement of Corporate Governance section, established whistleblowing policies, and mentioned the importance of whistleblowing activities within sections in their annual reports. This study focuses on companies’ annual reports. Future studies could be conducted to assess whistleblowing disclosure in other mediums such as the official websites of the companies. The study explored the aspect of corporate governance for the employee as practiced within publicly listed companies in Malaysia. The findings revealed the companies’ best practices for promoting transparency and accountability within organizations.