F1000Research F1000Research 2046-1402 F1000 Research Limited London, UK 10.12688/f1000research.160365.1 Brief Report Articles Work Alienation and Whistleblowing Intention: The Mediating and Moderating Role of Religious Political Orientation and Social Value Orientation

[version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]

 Abraham Juneman Conceptualization Data Curation Formal Analysis Funding Acquisition Investigation Methodology Resources Supervision Validation Visualization Writing – Original Draft Preparation Writing – Review & Editing https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0232-2735 a 1 Aquila Fairuuz Data Curation Formal Analysis Funding Acquisition Investigation Methodology Resources Supervision Validation Visualization Writing – Original Draft Preparation Writing – Review & Editing 1 Mangapul Christian Jeremia Data Curation Formal Analysis Investigation Methodology Project Administration Resources Software Validation Writing – Original Draft Preparation 1 Nainggolan Togiaratua Conceptualization Formal Analysis Funding Acquisition Project Administration Resources Validation Visualization Writing – Original Draft Preparation 2 Manurung Rudi Hartono Conceptualization Formal Analysis Funding Acquisition Project Administration Resources Validation Visualization Writing – Original Draft Preparation 3 Ruman Yustinus Suhardi Conceptualization Formal Analysis Funding Acquisition Resources Validation Visualization Writing – Original Draft Preparation 4 Psychology Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, 11480, Indonesia Research Center for Social Welfare, Village, and Connectivity, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, Jakarta, 10340, Indonesia Japanese Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, 11480, Indonesia Character Building Development Center and Communication Science Department, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, 11480, Indonesia juneman@binus.ac.id

No competing interests were disclosed.

 10 1 2025 2025 14 65 31 12 2024 Copyright: © 2025 Abraham J et al. 2025 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract* Background

This study investigates how perceived work alienation influences whistleblowing intention, with religious political orientation as a mediator and social value orientation as a moderator. Previous research has shown work alienation negatively correlates with prosocial behavior and activism while positively correlating with knowledge hiding. The study proposes that work alienation negatively predicts whistleblowing intention, with both religious political orientation and social value orientation playing influential roles in this relationship.

 Methods

Predictive correlational design with a mediation and moderation analysis was used in this study. The participants of this study were 263 Indonesians (131 males, 132 females; M age = 25.91 years old; SD age = 5.47 years).

 Results

The findings confirm that higher work alienation leads to lower whistleblowing intention. While religious political orientation did not significantly mediate the relationship between work alienation and whistleblowing intention as hypothesized, the study revealed that prosocial-type social value orientation weakens the negative relationship between work alienation and whistleblowing intention. The individualistic type showed no significant moderating effect.

 Conclusion

The research demonstrates that work alienation significantly predicts whistleblowing intention, with prosocial social value orientation serving as a buffer against the negative effects of work alienation on whistleblowing intention. These findings contribute to our understanding of the psychological factors influencing whistleblowing behavior in corruption prevention and eradication efforts.

 alienation intention social value whistleblowing corruption psychology politics and religion psychological orientation Directorate of Research, Technology and Community Service (DRTPM), Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology (Ditjen Diktiristek), Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek RI) in accordance with the Fiscal Year Research Contract 2024 105/E5/PG.02.00.PL/2024;784/LL3/AL.04/2024;092/VRRTT/VI/2024 This research was funded by the Directorate of Research, Technology and Community Service (DRTPM), Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology (Ditjen Diktiristek), Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek RI) in accordance with the Fiscal Year Research Contract 2024 No. 105/E5/PG.02.00.PL/2024; 784/LL3/AL.04/2024; 092/VRRTT/VI/2024. Introduction

Whistleblowing intention is a central variable in the prevention and eradication of corruption, and a number of studies have attempted to examine it ( Antoh et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2024). This study tries to look at the role of perceived work alienation in predicting it mediated by religious political orientation and moderated by social value orientation.

Almost half a century ago, Stokols (1975) exposed a number of factors of alienation, such as anonymity, automation, and economic injustice. In today’s digital era in Indonesia, people interact anonymously, such as through social media, and the use of robots is increasingly automating various jobs. On the other hand, various policies such as the Indonesian Omnibus Law on Job Creation (Law Number 11 of 2020 concerning Job Creation) have been found to have an impact on the economic injustice suffered by workers in Indonesia ( Hermanto & Purwaningsih, 2021).

The intensification of work alienation then occurs. Work alienation - the separation of a person from what he/she is doing - in a number of studies has been found to have a predictive correlation with (1) prosocial behavior (in a negative direction), (2) activism (in a negative direction) via class consciousness, and (3) knowledge hiding (in a positive direction) via emotional exhaustion ( Guo et al., 2022; Hornung, 2010; Sawyer & Gampa, 2020).

In other words, work alienation leads people to a number of syndromes ( Davids, 1955), such as being absorbed into oneself (becoming egocentric), pessimistic and difficult to believe in a system that actually has the opportunity (although indirectly) to improve their standard of living such as the whistleblowing system. Therefore, this study hypothesizes that work alienation can predict whistleblowing intention in a negative direction.

The feeling of alienation in a worker in a democratic country - which arises with psychological symptoms such as having a perception of low or zero control over work and work results, as well as feelings of powerless - can lead to wishful thinking ( Cauvin, 1987). It is not wishful thinking to influence society in a democratic country - because there is no longer any hope about it, but rather - this study hypothesizes - dreaming of the establishment of a theocracy, or a state governed by the laws of God ( Ferrero, 2013).

People who hope for theocracy certainly cannot make it happen at this time. Therefore, the dream is psychologically very likely to be sublimated into a religious political orientation. Religious political orientation is an antonym of secular political orientation, which shows “an attitude of agreeing with opinion that all law in Indonesia must rest on religious teaching” ( Mujani et al., 2018, p. 92).

This kind of orientation wants more people with strong religious beliefs to occupy positions in the government ( Mujani, 2022), in the hope that by this, the social, economic, and political life of their country will be better. The logic behind it is that people with strong religious affiliations can actualize their beliefs for the public good, including to fight corruption ( Marquette, 2013; Sommer et al., 2015; Wijaya, 2014), among others through whistleblowing intention.

Based on the above, this study hypothesizes that in predicting whistleblowing intention, work alienation can be partially mediated by religious political orientation.

Meanwhile, a person’s Social Value Orientation (SVO) is thought to reinforce – or conversely, weaken – the predictive relationship between alienation and whistleblowing intention.

SVO is a concept of “how much weight a person attaches to the welfare of others in relation to his or her own” ( Ackermann, 2014, p. vii). Ackermann (2014) divides SVO into 9 types, namely prosocial, individualist, competitive, sadistic, sadistic, masochist, martyr, and altruist. This research focuses on 2 types of SVOs, namely the prosocial type (maximizing mutual gains, or maximizing the number of gains for the welfare of oneself and others) and individualist (maximizing gains for oneself and not caring about the welfare of others).

The act of blowing the whistle can be classified as a form of cooperative or prosocial behavior, as the disclosure of corruption that occurs in the organization’s environment will bring benefits to the public and the company where one works. In contrast, in today’s highly competitive world, individualism reinforces alienation that can erode love for others ( Monsour, 2017). In this context, whistleblowing can be viewed as a form of love to protect others in the organization from the effects of unethical behavior from its members.

Therefore, this study hypothesizes that prosocial type of SVO will weaken the negative relationship between work alienation and whistleblowing intention, while individualistic type will strengthen the negative relationship between the two.

 Methods Study design

This study employed a quantitative, predictive correlational design to investigate the relationships between the key variables. The research was conducted in an online setting using a cross-sectional approach, with no follow-up procedures implemented.

The predictor variable is work alienation, the criterion variable is whistleblowing intention; the mediator and moderator variables are religious political orientation and social value orientation, respectively.

 Participants

The study examined 263 Indonesian participants, with an almost equal gender distribution (132 females, 131 males). The average age was 25.91 years (SD = 5.47). Data collection spanned from June 2020 to October 2024, using convenience sampling.

Participants were required to be employed workers in organizations or companies, aged 15 or above (in accordance with Indonesian labor regulations). From a total eligible workforce of 50,383,238 ( BPS, 2023), the study’s sample size of 263 exceeded the calculated minimum requirement of 252 participants ( Calculator.net, 2022). This sample size was determined using a 90% confidence level and a population proportion of 36.34%, with a ±5% margin of error. The 90% confidence level is considered standard for industrial research purposes ( Sauro, 2015).

This study – along with the study of Abraham et al. (2023) – is part of a larger research umbrella with the topic of whistleblowing intention. Therefore, the process of recruiting participants – detailed in the following paragraphs – has a similar procedure to the their study.

Potential participants were recruited through social media platforms, including X™ – formerly Twitter (X Corp), Instagram™ (Meta Platforms, Inc.), and WhatsApp™ (Meta Platforms, Inc.). Eligibility was assessed either by directly inquiring through online messaging or by reviewing the public details on their social media profiles. Once deemed eligible, participants were invited to voluntarily complete a questionnaire about the world of work.

Written informed consent was obtained digitally, with participants indicating their agreement by ticking a box in the Google Form, acknowledging that their anonymized data could be used and published for research purposes. They were informed that the survey would take no longer than 30 minutes to complete, with assurances that their responses would remain anonymous, not be judged for right or wrong, and used solely for research purposes. To encourage participation, researchers offered a random prize draw, where 10 participants would each receive IDR 50,000 (approximately USD 3.08), transferred to their mobile phone numbers. Participants interested in joining the draw were required to provide their phone numbers.

 Data collection

The Whistleblowing Intention instrument is compiled according to the study of Abraham et al. (2023, para. 17), as follows:

“To measure whistleblowing intention, the author combines two concepts, namely intention and whistleblowing. Based on the definition of intention ( Davis & Warshaw, 1992; Warshaw & Davis, 1985), the dimensions of intention are (1) Conscious formulation of plan, (2) Specific behavior performance, and (3) Future behavior performance. Meanwhile, because one aspect of intention is specified behavior, vignettes are used (e.g. Ahmad et al., 2013) to illustrate specific cases of corruption contextualized in the world of work. In order to determine the strength of whistleblowing intention, this study asks the question, for example, “If you were in this concrete situation as an employee, how willing would you be to report this action to the leadership within one week? (INTEND TO means committing, planning with full awareness, deliberate or solid intention to act)” (20 items) with response options ranging from Strongly Not Intend (scored 1) to Strongly Intend (scored 6). This study also combines types of whistleblowing (internal, external, formal, informal, anonymous, identified) ( Park et al., 2008).”

Work Alienation measure ( Nair & Vohra, 2009; Shantz et al., 2012) includes three dimensions, namely disappointment, apathy, and disconnection to the work and the products resulting from the work. This research uses a three-item scale from Shantz et al. (2012), and it is an open instrument - as seen in the Appendix (p. 21) - that can be used freely for research purpose, as stated by the publisher in its terms and conditions, “This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.” The response options ranges are from Strongly Disagree (scored 1) to Strongly Agree (scored 6).

The Religious Political Orientation measure is adapted by the researcher from the Islamist Political Orientation/Islamism metric constructed by Mujani (2003, p. 358-359), document number: osu1054572222. Originally, this measuring tool consisted of 14 items. This research selects these items and contextualizes them so that they can be responded to not only by Muslims but also by people from all religions in Indonesia. For example, the sentence “The state should enforce the obligation to implement Islamic law (shari’a) for all Muslims.” is adapted to “The state should enforce the obligation to implement religious law for all believers (e.g., Islamic law – if you are a Muslim, or Christian teachings – if you are a Christian/Catholic).” The response options ranges are from Strongly Disagree (scored 1) to Strongly Agree (scored 6). The use of the instrument has been validated and acknowledged by the creator himself, i.e. Mujani, on December 28, 2024.

The social value orientation (SVO) measurement tool is the SVO Slider Masure ( Murphy et al., 2011), and it is permitted to be used freely based on Murphy’s statement on Murphy (n.d.). This measure focuses on the consistency of choice behavior in resource (money) allocation tasks across a variety of contextual settings and situations. This is based on the idea that it is more efficient to gauge a person’s social preferences with the question “How much money will you spend to reduce the burden on your neighbors?” than questions such as “How good are you?”, because “good” itself is very subjective ( Ackermann, 2014). The complete procedure and SVO scoring can be found through the Murphy (n.d.) page.

A copy of the questionnaire and statistical results can be found under Extended data ( Abraham et al., 2024).

 Data analysis

The construct validity test with Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted with JASP version 0.19.0.0 for Windows and it was found that the model for Whistleblowing Intention and Religious Political Orientation was fit based on the Chi-square test ( p < 0.001). The Alienation instrument only consists of 3 items, so it cannot produce a p-value for this test. However, the item validity test with the unidimensional reliability procedure, for Alienation (Alpha = 0.751), Whistleblowing Intention (Alpha = 0.907), and Religious Political Orientation (Alpha = 0.860) produced valid items with an item-rest correlations index greater than 0.250 and relaible instruments with a Cronbach’s Alpha index greater than 0.600. The SVO measuring instrument relies on the validity and reliability of the original measuring instrument, of which the test-retest reliability has a value of 0.915 ( Murphy et al., 2011).

The data analysis for inferential statistical tests was conducted using JASP, employing Model 5 from Hayes’ (2022) PROCESS macro.

 Results

The correlation between variables that have an interval measurement of averaged scores is shown in Table 1. Meanwhile, Tables 2 and 3 each show the main effects and interaction (moderating) effects as well as direct and indirect (mediating) effects. Figure 1 shows the model of the relationship between variables produced in this study.

Correlation between variables.
Pearson's correlations
Variable Whistleblowing Intention Work Alienation Religious Political Orientation
1. Whistleblowing Intention r —
p —
Lower 95% CI —
Upper 95% CI —
2. Work Alienation r -0.038 —
p 0.539 —
Lower 95% CI -0.158 —
Upper 95% CI 0.083 —
3. Religious Political Orientation r 0.122 * 0.145 * —
p 0.049 0.019 —
Lower 95% CI 6.297×10 -4 0.024 —
Upper 95% CI 0.239 0.261 —

p <.05.

 Main effects and an interaction effect in predicting whistleblowing intention.
Path coefficients
95% Confidence Interval
Estimate Std. Error z p Lower Upper Std. Estimate
Work Alienation → Whistleblowing Intention -0.132 0.057 -2.314 0.021 -0.243 -0.020 -0.170
Religious Political Orientation → Whistleblowing Intention 0.079 0.048 1.636 0.102 -0.016 0.173 0.099
Social Value Orientation → Whistleblowing Intention -0.526 0.370 -1.421 0.155 -1.251 0.199 -0.609 a
Work Alienation x Social Value Orientation → Whistleblowing Intention 0.237 0.103 2.305 0.021 0.036 0.438 0.305 a
Work Alienation → Religious Political Orientation 0.141 0.060 2.369 0.018 0.024 0.258 0.145

Partially standardized estimate because effect involves categorical predictor.

 Direct and indirect effects in predicting whistleblowing intention.
95% Confidence Interval
Social Value Orientation Estimate Std. Error z p Lower Upper Std. Estimate
Alienation → Whistleblowing Intention Individualist -0.132 0.057 -2.314 0.021 -0.243 -0.020 -0.170 a
Alienation → Whistleblowing Intention Prosocial 0.105 0.086 1.221 0.222 -0.064 0.274 0.135 a
Alienation → Religious Political Orientation → Whistleblowing Intention 0.011 0.008 1.346 0.178 -0.005 0.027 0.014

Partially standardized estimate because effect involves categorical predictor.

 Research model.

Note. W_I = Whistleblowing intention; Aln = Work Alienation; RlP = Religious Political Orientation; SV_ = Social Value Orientation; A:S = Work Alienation moderated by Social Value Orientation.

 Discussion

This study provides empirical support for the hypothesis that the higher the work alienation, the lower the whistleblowing intention. This is in line with the findings of Muttar et al. (2019) that work alienation is negatively correlated with citizenship behavior and organizational commitment. Whistleblowing is a form of internal control and this moral behavior can only occur if citizenship behavior is high ( Holmes et al., 2002).

Unlike hypothesized, religious political orientation is not significant in moderating the predictive relationship between work alienation and whistleblowing intention. This might be because religious political attitudes encourage political attitudes that can be favorable or unfavorable to whistleblowing intentions. For example, Mujani (2022) stated that religious political orientation can encourage democratic support and – in contrast – social inequality. Meanwhile, whistleblowing intention is culturally the embodiment of attitudes that support democratic efforts and dedication to achieving social justice and equality ( Etuk & James, 2024; Okafor et al., 2020).

According to the proposition stated in the introduction, the prosocial type of social value orientation weakens the negative relationship between work alienation and whistleblowing intention. However, contrary to what is hypothetical, the individualistic type is not significant in moderating the relationship between the two.

Prosociality as the “heart” of whistleblowing has been studied since almost four decades by Dozier and Miceli (1985). When dealing with moral conflicts between reporting and not reporting wrongdoings, this type considers the benefits of whistleblowing to other people or organizations. This could “lower the effect” of work alienation, because prosociality activates a person’s sense of belonging to their community or organization ( Klein, 2017).

Meanwhile, the direction of individualism is not as clear as the direction of prosociality. The findings of Xin (2014) show that individualism often emphasizes on individual rights and control over their lives. In this culture, when a person encounters an inappropriate situation, a common approach is to avoid facing a direct conflict. Evasion is considered safer and reduces risk for individuals compared to reporting violations, which can cause greater problems for reporters. An individualist who experiences work alienation can strengthen the negative effect of work alienation on whistleblowing intention because he/she is increasingly afraid of losing his/her job, professional relationships, or social support. However, it is possible that people with individualistic cultures can also blow the whistle, where “Individuals from individualistic cultures are encouraged to openly share their different perspectives because the action of speaking their thoughts is regarded as honest” ( Cheng et al., 2015, p. 17), and this can weaken the negative effect of work alienation on whistleblowing intention.

Ethical considerations

This present study was approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek RI) by considering the substance, ethics, and administrative completeness, with Decision Letter Number: 0459/E5/PG.02.00/2024 dated May 30, 2024; it is also strengthened by the Bina Nusantara University, vide Letter Number: 092/VRRTT/VI/2024 (Article 1, Paragraph 2). The full empirical study started on 1 June 2024, and it was preceded by a period of umbrella study on the corruption psychology and whistleblowing behavior since June 2020 based on the researchers’ roadmap.

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their involvement in the study. The consent included approval for the research procedures to be conducted and for the publication of this article, which incorporates anonymized, analyzed, and interpreted data.

 Author roles

Juneman Abraham: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing –Review and Editing;

Fairuuz Aquila: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation;

Christian Jeremia Mangapul: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation;

Togiaratua Nainggolan: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Project Administration, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation.

Rudi Hartono Manurung: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation;

Yustinus Suhardi Ruman: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation.

 Data availability

No data are associated with this article.

Underlying data

Zenodo: ‘Supplementary Material of Alienation and Whistleblowing Intention: The Mediating and Moderating Role of Religious Political Orientation and Social Value Orientation’. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14533324 ( Abraham et al., 2024).

This project contains the following underlying data:

Whistleblowing Intention.csv

Extended data

This project contains the following extended data:

Whistleblowing Intention - Suppl Material - Questionnaire.pdf

Whistleblowing Intention.jasp

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).

 Reporting guidelines

This article reporting observational studies follows the STROBE guidelines .

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Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.

 10 9 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Rehman AU 2025 This is an open access peer review report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recommendation approve-with-reservations

Here are my review comments for the article titled "Work Alienation and Whistleblowing Intention: The Mediating and Moderating Role of Religious Political Orientation and Social Value Orientation."

Theoretical Motivation:

The article effectively addresses the topic of work alienation and its impact on whistleblowing intentions, but it could benefit from a clearer theoretical framework. For instance, incorporating Marx’s theory of alienation more explicitly could provide stronger theoretical grounding for the notion of work alienation. This would help the reader connect the emotional and psychological aspects of alienation to its consequences in an organizational context. Additionally, Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior could be referenced to explain the intention to blow the whistle as a behavior influenced by attitude, subjective norms, and perceived control. The theoretical link between work alienation, social value orientation (SVO), and whistleblowing intention needs more clarity, especially in justifying the specific role of religious political orientation in this context. It is unclear why this variable is included, and the rationale behind its role could be expanded.

Empirical Motivation:

The article is based on recent studies and provides a current take on the issue of whistleblowing. However, there is a gap in incorporating recent developments in the literature on workplace alienation. For example, recent works such as Guo et al. (2022), which discuss the impact of alienation on knowledge sharing, could be integrated to better reflect the diversity of consequences that alienation has on organizational behaviors, including whistleblowing. Moreover, the use of studies that focus specifically on religious political orientation as it relates to whistleblowing is lacking, which makes the relevance of this variable somewhat unclear.

Advocacy and Recency of Literature:

The article references several well-established works, but more recent research should be cited, especially those exploring whistleblowing in the context of digital workplaces, considering the contemporary work environment. The 2023 Abraham et al. paper, which discusses whistleblowing and its predictors, should be placed in context as the research builds on that, but the review section does not sufficiently emphasize how this article extends or challenges existing literature. Ackermann (2014) on social value orientation is cited, but this is outdated for discussions on modern organizational contexts. The inclusion of digital alienation as a form of alienation in modern work environments would be worth addressing.

Construction of Variables:

The construction of variables is generally clear, but the article fails to clarify the reasons behind the selection of three-item measures for variables like work alienation and whistleblowing intention. It's important to mention why these particular measures were chosen over others, such as those with higher reliability or more established use in similar contexts. A discussion on the validity and reliability of these measures would strengthen the argument for their use. Additionally, the article mentions social value orientation (SVO) but does not offer enough justification for choosing only the prosocial and individualist types. Including more nuanced types of SVO might yield richer insights.

Methods Adopted:

The methods adopted are appropriate for the study’s objectives. However, the sample size and sampling technique raise some concerns. While 263 participants are adequate, the study utilizes convenience sampling which can introduce bias. A more robust sampling method, such as stratified random sampling, might yield more representative results, especially considering the diversity of the Indonesian workforce. Additionally, while JASP software was used for data analysis, it would be helpful to explain the rationale for choosing PROCESS model 5, as there are alternative methods that could have been considered depending on the complexity of the mediation and moderation effects.

Discussion:

The discussion section ties the results back to the hypotheses well, but some of the conclusions are overly broad. For example, the claim that religious political orientation did not mediate the relationship between alienation and whistleblowing intention should delve deeper into why this may have been the case. The explanation that "religious political orientation can encourage both positive and negative attitudes towards whistleblowing" is somewhat vague and needs more empirical support. The comparison of individualistic and prosocial SVO types should also consider the complexities within individualistic cultures and whether whistleblowing is truly discouraged, or whether it depends on the specific context and the type of wrongdoing being reported.

Conclusion:

The conclusion summarizes the main findings adequately, but it fails to discuss the practical implications of the research in detail. It would be helpful to include actionable recommendations for organizations or policymakers on how to mitigate alienation and encourage whistleblowing. For example, if religious political orientation plays a role in shaping whistleblowing intention, could this be leveraged to design training or awareness programs that focus on ethical decision-making within religious or culturally specific contexts?

Style of References:

The references are generally well-structured, but there are some inconsistencies in citation style. For instance, Ackermann (2014) is cited as a doctoral dissertation, but other references are more formal articles or books. Ensure that all references are aligned in terms of style—preferably following the APA 7th edition style consistently throughout the article. Additionally, some sources could be updated or clarified, such as Ackermann’s dissertation, which may not be accessible to many readers.

Grammar and Clarity:

There are some grammatical issues throughout the article, such as the occasional misuse of commas and sentence fragments. In particular, the introduction contains some long-winded sentences that could be simplified for better clarity. For example, the sentence: "Work alienation – the separation of a person from what he/she is doing – in a number of studies has been found to have a predictive correlation with (1) prosocial behavior (in a negative direction), (2) activism (in a negative direction) via class consciousness, and (3) knowledge hiding (in a positive direction) via emotional exhaustion" could be broken into two sentences for ease of reading.

Minor Corrections:In the introduction, "the intensification of work alienation then occurs" could be rephrased as "work alienation intensifies" for simplicity.In the methodology section, "A copy of the questionnaire and statistical results can be found under Extended data" is vague. It would be better to say, "The full questionnaire and statistical results are available in the supplementary materials section."

 These suggestions aim to enhance the overall quality of the article, both in terms of theory, methodology, and readability.

Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?

Yes

If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?

No

Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?

Partly

Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?

Partly

Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?

No

Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?

Partly

Reviewer Expertise:

Digital Inclusion, Corporate governance, firm life cycle

I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.