Whistleblowing as an emerging norm for optimising corporate governance: Prospects and challenges for implementation

Whistleblowing has become a global trend in corporate internal monitoring aimed at effectively increasing transparency and encouraging disclosures to enhance the corporate governance of public companies. This treatise presents a critical analysis of how contemporary whistleblowing frameworks apply to the Saudi capital market and highlights the current stance on whistleblowing encapsulated in the prevailing Saudi legal framework, along with suggestions for improvements that would facilitate the creation of a conducive environment for whistleblowing. A multi-method approach comprising comparative legal analysis and an extensive review of the literature on the underlying legal rationale is employed to examine how different legal frameworks affect the willingness of corporate insiders to report violations internally and externally, thereby enhancing governance practices. The research findings show that for business insiders to be motivated to step forward and make disclosures about corporate misbehaviour, there must be an established, comprehensive legal framework that ensures robust individual rights and protections against potential retaliation.