Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine whether auditors' awareness ofwhistleblowing differs between small and large audit firms in Sweden, and asses if thereis a need for improving the accessibility of the whistleblowing systems.

Method: This study applies an abductive research approach with a qualitative researchmethod. The empirical data was gathered through ten semi structured interviews withauditors from both small and large audit firms. Lastly, a thematic analysis was conductedto identify themes and patterns in collected data. 

Analysis & Discussion: This study conducted an analysis on the collected data, whichwas based on the conceptual and theoretical framework. It examines the underlyingfactors that affect respondents' awareness of whistleblowing and the organizationsaccessibility to internal whistleblowing systems. Both organizational and individualfactors, such as education, communication, leadership and company culture, were foundto have an impact. When employees have more knowledge and good accessibility to safechannels, the threshold for reporting misconducts can be reduced. This can in turncontribute to a more ethical company culture, where the fear of retaliation is low. Finally,the findings were linked to established research and theories, including institutionaltheory, signaling theory, and theory of planned behavior, to strengthen the reflectionsdrawn from the empirical data.

Conclusion: A first conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that there is nosignificant difference between the respondent's general awareness of the concept ofwhistleblowing. There is a basic understanding of the term and what whistleblowingentails in practice. The second conclusion is that there is a slight difference in theawareness of internal whistleblowing systems between small and large audit firms. In thelarge firms, there was an awareness of the existence of the systems, but not how theimplementation process looked like. In the small firms however, there was little to noawareness of either the internal whistleblowing systems, or whether their firm hadinternal guidelines for reporting misconducts. A third conclusion from this study is thatthere is a need to improve the accessibility of whistleblowing systems in both small andlarge audit firms, although the extent of the need differs between them.