Purpose Whistleblowing is a critical mechanism for promoting organizational accountability and ethical governance, yet employees’ willingness to report wrongdoing varies across organizational and national contexts. This study aims to examine how job satisfaction, psychological safety, organizational culture and national cultural values influence internal whistleblowing intentions. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected from 1,090 employees across five countries (USA, Canada, Australia, France and Brazil). Regression and cross-national moderation analyses were conducted to examine the effects of psychological, organizational and cultural factors on internal whistleblowing intentions. Findings Job satisfaction and psychological safety emerged as strong and consistent predictors of internal whistleblowing intentions across all countries. Organizational culture dimensions exhibited substantially weaker explanatory power once these psychological factors were considered. Among the national cultural dimensions examined, power distance was the only significant moderator, weakening the positive relationship between job satisfaction and whistleblowing intentions. Institutional collectivism and uncertainty avoidance did not significantly moderate reporting intentions. Significant cross-national differences were also observed, with employees in the USA reporting the highest whistleblowing intentions and employees in France reporting the lowest. Practical implications Organizations seeking to strengthen ethical reporting systems should prioritize fostering psychological safety, positive employee experiences and reporting environments that reduce hierarchical barriers. Originality/value The findings suggest that internal whistleblowing intentions are driven primarily by employees’ immediate psychological experiences, whereas organizational and cultural influences operate mainly as contextual conditions. Exploratory analyses suggest that power distance may act as a cultural boundary condition that weakens the relationship between job satisfaction and whistleblowing intentions.
Purpose This paper aims to examine whether the ethical responsibility of Sharia financial technology (Sharia fintech) can be normatively justified rather than assumed on the basis of its religious identity or developmental claims. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a normative–conceptual ethical analysis that evaluates Sharia fintech as a morally accountable financial system using two normative benchmarks: the objectives of Sharia (maqasid al-Sharia) and the ethical vision embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Findings The analysis develops a conceptual evaluation framework structured around four ethical tension fields: inclusion versus digital exclusion, social objectives versus profit orientation, technological efficiency versus data ethics and accountability and sustainability commitments versus symbolic alignment. These tensions show that ethical legitimacy in Sharia fintech is neither inherent nor guaranteed by formal compliance, but conditionally achieved through continuous moral negotiation between innovation, market pressures and social responsibility. Research limitations/implications This study is conceptual in nature and does not empirically assess specific fintech platforms or governance practices. Future research may operationalise the proposed framework through qualitative case studies or institutional analysis to examine how Sharia fintech organisations manage the identified ethical tensions in practice. Practical implications The proposed framework provides regulators, Sharia supervisory boards and fintech governance bodies with a structured ethical lens for evaluating Sharia fintech beyond formal compliance. It highlights the need to institutionalise accountability mechanisms in areas such as data governance, inclusion strategies and sustainability alignment within digitally mediated Sharia finance. Originality/value Rather than treating Sharia compliance or alignment with the SDGs as proxies for ethical legitimacy, this study develops a normative framework that evaluates where such claims become contested. The framework combines maqasid al-Sharia and the SDGs as complementary normative reference points and identifies four ethical tension fields through which the legitimacy of Sharia fintech can be critically assessed.
Purpose Global health discourse has increasingly focused on achieving universal health coverage, yet the occupational health needs of the workforce delivering these services remain systematically neglected. This paper aims to address the systematic neglect of the occupational health needs of female health-care providers – principally nurses and midwives – in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The paper makes particular reference to Sub-Saharan Africa. It develops an integrative multilevel conceptual model that explains how this neglect is produced, transmitted and amplified and proposes implementable multilevel responses. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a structured integrative literature review, reported in line with the PRISMA 2020 statement, and conducted for the purpose of conceptual model development. Eighty-six sources retained from six databases and grey literature repositories were synthesised through a codebook-style thematic analysis. It draws on the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) framework, Moral Injury Theory, the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model and the Health Equity Framework. Findings The synthesis suggests that macro-level structural determinants are proposed to produce the foundational architecture of provider neglect. Meso-level organisational factors are proposed to transmit macro-structural neglect into the lived realities of individual providers. Micro-level clinical stressors appear to amplify the intermediate consequences experienced by individual providers beyond what structural and organisational factors alone imply. Gendered structures operate as a cross-cutting context conditioning every level of the model. Feedback loops link deteriorating health system outcomes back to macro- and meso-level conditions. Dismantling provider neglect is therefore proposed to require simultaneous interventions at all three levels of the model. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual paper, the proposed model is not empirically tested. It requires empirical validation through quantitative and qualitative studies across different health-care settings, particularly in LMICs. Cross-national comparative studies across Sub-Saharan African, South Asian and Latin American contexts would test the model’s generalisability. Longitudinal studies tracking the same provider cohorts over time would help examine the proposed sequence and feedback loops. Practical implications The paper emphasises the necessity for national governments, health ministries and institutions and policymakers to establish comprehensive occupational health programmes, dedicated health insurance schemes for providers, workplace wellness initiatives, mental health services and financial protection mechanisms. It specifies responsible actors, implementation priorities and measurable outcomes for each recommendation. International development partners, global health donors and multilateral organisations should integrate health-care workforce welfare into health systems-strengthening investments. Social implications The study reframes health-care providers as a vulnerable population whose health needs are often overlooked within health-care systems. It contributes to sustainable development goals 1 (end poverty in all its forms everywhere), 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all), 8 (productive employment and decent work and economic development for all), 10 (reduce inequality) and 16 (provide access to justice for all). Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to integrate macro-, meso- and micro-level explanations of health-care provider neglect within a single conceptual model that embeds gender-specific mechanisms and feedback loops in its connecting structure. It reframes this neglect as an equity and social justice issue rather than a management problem. It extends Moral Injury Theory into the domain of occupational health exclusion. It repositions the SDH framework as a tool for analysing occupational health inequalities among the health workforce itself.
The rapid shift from traditional face-to-face professional service delivery to digitally enabled crowdsourcing models, driven by automation and digitalisation, raises significant ethical and legal concerns. This study aims to critically examine the ethical and legal dimensions of professional crowdsourcing, focusing on its benefits, risks, governance challenges and implications for ethical integrity in the digital economy. The study uses a qualitative critical literature review, methodologically guided by the SPAR-4-SLR and PRISMA methods. The chosen literature was then organised and synthesised using the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology framework as the analytical framework. 56 of the 118 potentially pertinent articles that were found through a thorough search of Google Scholar and Scopus between 2000 and 2024 met the inclusion and quality requirements. The theoretcal underpinnings, research contexts, key ethical and legal aspects and methodological approaches of the retained studies were all synthesised. Three findings emerged. First, professional crowdsourcing offers significant advantages, including wider access to expertise, lower transaction costs and faster service delivery, but it also raises systemic ethical and legal issues. Key concerns include fairness, accountability, algorithmic transparency, privacy, labour protections and regulatory uncertainty, which are often embedded in platform design rather than isolated incidents. Second, ethical management frameworks such as Stakeholder Theory, Social Contract Theory and Digital Ethics suggest that these risks stem from governance failures, power imbalances and opaque algorithmic processes, rather than from individual misconduct. Thirdly, insights from real-world cases on Amazon Mechanical Turk and Kickstarter demonstrate that ethical issues often arise when governance fails to keep pace with technological advances. However, increased regulation, stakeholder engagement, transparent algorithms, fair compensation and effective grievance mechanisms can help mitigate these risks. The study underscores the need for proactive managerial and policy interventions, including transparent governance mechanisms, fair labour practices, ethical platform design and effective regulatory oversight. This study contributes by shifting the focus from general crowdsourcing to professional service contexts, and by integrating ethical theory, legal analysis and case-based evidence to provide a comprehensive, governance-oriented understanding of ethical challenges in digital service ecosystems.
Purpose This study aims to develop a differentiated account of employee responses to toxic leadership beyond the conventional emphasis on intended exit. Focusing on Ghanaian informal-sector small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), it explains how toxic leadership may become associated with employee silence through learned helplessness and how job embeddedness (JE) conditions its relationship with turnover intention. Design/methodology/approach Using a quantitative approach, data were collected from 505 employees of SMEs operating within Ghana’s informal sector through a three-wave time-lagged survey design. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised relationships. Findings The findings reveal that toxic leadership is positively associated with learned helplessness and employee silence but does not significantly predict turnover intention. Learned helplessness partially mediates the relationship between toxic leadership and employee silence. The results further show that JE weakens the relationship between toxic leadership and turnover intention, suggesting that employees with stronger organisational and community attachments are less likely to leave despite experiencing workplace toxicity. Originality/value This study advances toxic leadership scholarship by distinguishing its psychological and communicative consequences from its relationship with turnover intention. It identifies learned helplessness as a mechanism linking toxic leadership with employee silence and JE as a boundary condition shaping the relationship between toxic leadership and turnover intention. The study thereby integrates explanatory mechanism and boundary condition within an underexamined informal-sector SME context.
