The Role of Mediator Emotional intelligence in Relation to ethical leadership with Whistle blowing Intention about Misconduct in Auditing Firms

emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, reach and evoke feelings in order to assist thought, to understand the feelings and its meaning, and a sense of control in a manner that fosters intellectual emotion. Emotion does not interfere with intelligent thinking and behavior, also helps a person in many things, including decision making. The role of emotional intelligence in various aspects of individual and social life, judgment and decision-making, made this structure as a topic of interest for researchers. Emotion is a type of information that people use to interact with their surroundings. Recent accounting studies highlight the importance of emotional intelligence on accountants’ job performance related to decision‐making, teamwork, and client relations. Emotional intelligence that leads to the ability to understand and manage the feelings of themselves and others and helps to make better decisions in difficult situations. Ethical leadership as a demonstration of normative appropriate behavior through conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers. That these behaviors result in subordinates being more likely to trust the leader and believe the leader is acting in their best interest; as a result, subordinates are more willing to follow the leader’s direction. One of the worst problems facing society today is the continued separation of business and ethics. especially since growing unethical business practices have a profound impact on individuals and society as a whole. One way of drawing attention to wrongdoings in business is through whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is the disclosure by organization members of illegal,immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action. Whistleblowing Intention auditors as a mechanism to prevent and detect unethical behaviors and wrongdoing in the audit profession. 

The statistical population of the study includes independent auditors working in private and public sector audit firms in 2020. In structural equations, at least 200 samples are proposed and according to Cochran's formula in an unlimited community, 385 samples are required. Based on this, 500 questionnaires were sent in paper and electronic and 441 of them were collected and reviewed. In this study, Taylor and Curtis questionnaire was used for whistleblowing variable, Kalshon et al. Questionnaire was used for ethical leadership variable and Schering’s Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire was used for emotional intelligence variable. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were used for the reliability of the questionnaire. Its validity with convergent and divergent validity has been investigated and confirmed using the average variance extracted (AVE) and Fornell and Larker matrices. Data were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using structural equations using LISREL software. 

In order to evaluate the conceptual model of the research and also to ensure the existence or non-existence of a causal relationship between the research variables and to examine the appropriateness of the observed data with the conceptual model of the research, the research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The first hypothesis examines the relationship between ethical leadership and auditors' whistleblowing intention, second hypothesis examines the relationship between ethical leadership and auditors' emotional intelligence and third hypothesis is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and auditors' whistleblowing intention. The results of this study show that ethical leadership has a direct positive and significant effect on auditors' intention to whistleblowing and this relationship is also significant and strengthened due to emotional intelligence. Thus, emotional intelligence is a good mediator for the relationship between ethical leadership and the intention to whistleblowing auditors. 

According to the results of this study, heed the principles of ethical leadership and paying attention to ethical values in employee relations in auditing firms, increase the intention to whistleblowing auditors. On the other hand, it can be said that ethical leadership in auditing firms leads to strengthening and paying attention to employees' emotional abilities and increasing their emotional intelligence. Also, based on these results, auditors with high emotional intelligence due to knowing their feelings and emotions and those of others, can manage their emotions in the complex situation of observing misconduct by colleagues and therefore are more inclined to whistleblowing. The present study can lead to more attention to the issue of whistleblowing, ethical behavior of managers, management and perception of employees' emotions and reduce misconduct in the auditing profession in Iran.