The term Whistleblower means “An employee who discloses information that s/he reasonably believes is evidence of illegality, gross waste or fraud, mismanagement, abuse of power, general wrongdoing, or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. When information is classified or otherwise restricted by Congress or Executive Order, disclosures only are protected as whistleblowing if made through designated, secure channels. (What is a Whistleblower?)” The idea behind whistleblowers is that they believe trying to inform the public of illegal acts within their businesses has the potential to protect the public from wrongdoing. The following studies analyze scholar’s findings on different factors related to whistle blowing as …show more content…
On the study “quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted of 33 cases of internal and external whistleblowers wrongfully fired for reporting wrongdoing” The results were “An employee's tenure in the organization likely impacts his or her choice of internal versus external channels for reporting wrongdoing. Newcomers tend to be less familiar with appropriate channels for internal reporting or effecting change (Miceli and Near, 1992, p. 117), they may identify less with the firm's goals, and they may lack knowledge of shared norms or how the corporate culture operates (Terry).” They also found “external whistleblowers have less tenure with the organization, greater evidence of wrongdoing, and they tend to be more effective in changing organizational practices …show more content…
A person with more education may be more able to recognize and assess varying kinds of real or implied wrongdoing, as well as perceive the appropriate lines of accountability for correcting such wrongdoing (Sims).” He also found “research in this area is inconclusive, although investigations by Graham (1986) suggest a potential link between education and whistleblowing (Sims).”
Sims stated the argument against education factor as well “while it was expected that education would be a significant predictor of the tendency to whistleblow (Graham, 1986), our findings did not support this hypothesis (Sims).”
In the same study “quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted of 33 cases of internal and external whistleblowers wrongfully fired for reporting wrongdoing” found that “The choice of internal versus external channels may vary depending on the employee's level of education, training, or skills (Terry).” They found “highly skilled or educated employees likely rely on internal reporting channels, while less educated employees often select external channels (Miceli and Near, 1992, 1984) (Terry).” Also “highly educated or skilled employees often have greater knowledge of where to report wrongdoing, including possible alternative reporting channels within
Corruption is a persistent problem that plagues the world and it knows no boundaries. Transparency International defines it as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (2013). For the purposes of this thread, ‘corruption’ is defined as any individual, collective, or structural act or process that permits the use of public authority or position for private gain. This definition captures the broad and many ways individuals and institutions abuse power and the public trust. In regard to whistleblowing, much conflict stems from the context in which the whistleblower is viewed.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was drafted to encourage and protect whistleblowers from retaliation after the fraud scandal that cause the collapse of Enron in 2001. In a 2010 Senate Report found that “external auditors detected only 4.1 percent of uncovered fraud schemes, “whistleblower tips detected 54.1% of uncovered fraud schemes in public companies” and were thirteen times more effective than external audits” (Turpan, 2016). Whistleblowers serve an important service to the public and are more effective than external audits. The CFAA has been used to by employers to retaliate against employees who act as informants for agencies like Internal Revenue Service or Security Exchange Commission to expose fraud. There employees, not to their financial gain, gather information as evidence of fraud by the company. With a broad interpretation of CFAA, the employee would "exceed their authority" and was "unauthorized" to access the information, therefore allowing the company to hide their illegal
The article’s purpose is to clarify the thin line between patriotism and treason in a whistleblowing action. Depending on the information available for the public to digest, many people could have different opinions on the whistleblower (s) and their intentions. The author discusses a case of Tim Priest, who disagreed with his management’s new policies and the way they were applied in practice, thus publicly announcing the hidden truths about the department. Priest worked for the police department as a detective sergeant. Questions of his intentions about disclosing the authority’s dishonest actions were raised amidst the investigation.
This occurs when someone tells a coworker about an illegal or immoral practice, in hopes that this person will do something to change the company. This usually occurs when they are trying not to cause any bad publicity for the company. If a company discourages the internal reporting, they are likely to become worse off and the individual that initially started the internal report will have to go out of the company and notify a governmental agency or even the press. From an ethical standpoint, internal reporting is a big part of keeping companies clear from whistle blowing. Even when whistleblowers keep the problem inside the company, they are still often seen as traitors or not company
Carson, C., & Cupach, W. (2000). Facing Corrections in the Workplace: The Influence of Perceived Face Threat on the Consequences of Managerial Reproaches. Journal of Applied Communication Research, Vol.28(3).
Whistleblowers often make their way into the public eye, but what is a whistle blower exactly? What are the criteria? Whistle blowing is "raising the alarm in public about a wrong being committed in private" (Vickers, 2002, p.42). By definition, a whistle blower can only "blow the whistle" on an organization of which he is a member (Vickers, 2002). That point is rather obvious. After all, the concept of being a whistleblower is providing inside information. Also, it brings up a significant problem. People are reluctant to "blow the whistle" because they can lose everything they worked for. It seems almost unfair. The person in this predicament will have to decide whether or not to keep his job as is, or to do the right thing and tel...
On November 29th, Mary Inman gave us a talk on the topic whistleblowing, which let me know more about the whistleblower activities and the whistleblower protection. According to the definition given by the website whistleblowers international, whistleblowing is someone who reveal the unethical or illegal activities within the company. The person can be current or past employee, or an outside individual who is familiar with the unethical activity. This whistleblower does not need to be U.S. citizen.
However, it may not be the best solution to be used first when dealing with unethical corporate practices. From more of a Utilitarian approach one should seek to do the greatest good. An approach that gives the company a chance to change its unethical behavior internally would follow this idea. Having the ability to change practices internally before outside intervention can have many positive effects. The company is able to make the changes, reestablish its integrity, maintain business, and retain employees. The whistleblowing option brings in outside forces that could lead to repercussions for the company which may include restitution or even being closed down. If the business is closed it effects more than just the corporate entity, all of the employees are also negatively impacted by this as well when they would lose their jobs. Sometimes however, when the company is unwilling to change its practices and do business in a more ethical manner people are left with little choice but to report to outside sources what is occurring within the business. Many see whistleblowing as law-breaking when employees are contractually obligated to
The three things required for whistle blowing to take place are- wrong-doer (who commits the wrong-doing), whistle-blower (who observes and reports the wrong-doing) and recipient (who receives the report of wrong-doing) (Near & Miceli, 1996). Often whistle-blowers face retaliation for their actions which, according to a research by Near & Miceli (1996), correlates to ‘situational characteristics’ and occurs more often when the whistle-blower uses external rather than internal sources of reporting. There is a large literature dedicated wholly to Nancy Olivieri. The several hundred pages of reports were written-“Naimark Report” commissioned by the HSC, “Thompson report” commissioned by CAUT and “Report of inquiry committee” of CPSO (Schafer, 2004).
The act of whistle-blowing is an ethical issue that all employees have the right to. Whether they decide to make the corrupt information known publicly or anonymously, the information they provide can protect everyone involved. The ethical and moral sides of whistle-blowing can go both ways. In order to protect the customers, patients, or consumers of the harmful products the companies are offering, employees that have morals and feel the need to make the truth be known have an ethical responsibility to do so. Issues of being a whistle-blower are more controversial than the responsibilities of the employees doing so. When a whistle-blower takes action, they expose information from their company that it not meant to be public. They basically turn their backs away from their company and colleagues by revealing the truth. When surveying these issues, an employee who is torn by exposing information or keeping silent must decide whether it is more ethical to stay loyal to their organization or to the organization's
Kniffin, K. M., & Wilson, D. S. (2010). Evolutionary perspectives on workplace gossip: Why and how gossip can serve groups. Group & Organization Management, 35(2), 150-176. doi:10.1177/1059601109360390
For this essay, I will evaluate the Employee Loyalty Argument derived from ‘Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty’ by Ronald Duska. I will argue that this Employee Loyalty Argument is deductively valid but is not deductively sound because premise 2 is false. I will justify my claims that premise 2 is false by arguing about how it is rational for employees to expect their companies to recognize and fulfill a duty of loyalty to their employees if the employees also have a duty of loyalty to the companies that employ them.
Although Hollate introduced a compliance program and code of conduct when it went public, the programs were put on “the back burner”. This outcome is not surprised for that the company does not pay attention to the programs. It is, therefore, important to “reinforce the values” and “employee a boundary system when actions are inconsistent with the code of conduct” for the purpose of early detection. Tyco provides a good example after its scandal, by initiating “mandatory annual compliance training for all its employees worldwide” and creating the Tyco Guide to Ethical Conduct to familiarize employees with company expectations and help them make ethical decisions. As tips is the most useful method for internal and external sources to detect frauds, the whistleblower hotline should be well communicated with encouragement on reporting any suspicious activity. In addition, to improve the effectiveness of the compliance program and code of conducts, Hollate should implement management monitoring and evaluation on a regular
Companies always know there is a possibility that the whistle will be blown, in this case the obstacle is created by knowledge that their employees stand to gain an advantage from uncovering corporate misbehaviour and thus they may be proactively looking for other people outside the organization to inform the
Whistle blowing is an attempt of an employee or former employee of a company to reveal what he or she believes to be a wrongdoing in or by a company or organization. Whistle blowing tries to make others aware of practices that are considered illegal or immoral. If the wrongdoing is reported to someone in the company it is said to be internal. Internal whistle blowing tends to do less damage to the company. There is also external whistle blowing. This is where the wrongdoing is reported to the media and brought to the attention of the public. This type of whistle blowing tends to affect the company in a negative way because of bad publicity. It is said that whistle blowing is personal if the wrongdoing affects the whistle blower alone (like sexual harassment), and said to be impersonal if the wrongdoing affects other people. Many people whistle blow for two main reasons: morality and revenge.