C. Fred Alford's Whistleblower: Broken Lives And Organizational Power

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Recommended: Challenges that whistle blowers face

Whistleblower: A whistleblower is a person who brings to notice any illegal act, fraud or misconduct prevailing with a company or organization. There are multiple situations involving wrongdoing by the government official, or your supervisor or the company itself wherein common people like you and me may feel like reporting and exposing the wrongdoers. The feeling of being a part of the wrongful acts of fraud or misconduct may cause someone to be a whistleblower and expose the unethical people. A whistleblower may be an employee, auditor, lawyer, ex-employee or customer of the company. Being a whistleblower is not easy and glamourous as it sounds! The grim reality of a whistleblower’s life is well described by C. Fred Alford in his book ‘Whistleblowers: …show more content…

Fred Alford is Professor of Government and Politics and Distinguished Scholar Teacher at The University of Maryland. In his book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power’ he has put light on the whistleblower’s experience and the how the organizational power affects the lives of the whistleblower. His research is based on the narratives of the whistleblowers, their families, attorneys, and therapists. He also attended various whistleblower support groups, considered writings on whistleblowing activity to arrive at his research. Alfred had portrayed a pessimistic outcome of whistleblowing describing how the courageous acts of the whistleblowers have destroyed their careers and lives. He has included a varied whistleblower’s experiences coming from government agencies and the public sector. The stories he has incorporated in the book has more or less a similar end with the whistleblowers left with no job, career, family, and …show more content…

He says, "Frank Whitbread is a chemist who worked for a state environmental protection agency. Several times his boss had refused to allow him to testify before a state panel investigating the agency’s failure to test the well water of subdivisions located near sites where hazardous materials had been dumped. Eventually he called up a state senator and told him his story. Shortly thereafter Frank was fired. The state civil service commission made his agency take him back, but he was given no work to do and an office that was once a janitor’s closet." (Alfred, 2002, p.

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