Why whistleblowing is ethical

The result has been that whistleblowers are routinely grabbing headlines — and big rewards. Those big numbers make it no wonder that private sector employers share a common fear: that big rewards will entice employees to go to the government with problems that employers would address if just given a chance — all at a devastating cost to the business.

That is because GSK management ignored evidence of misconduct that the investigation produced. As a result, the company missed an opportunity to save millions, if not billions of dollars. And under the right circumstances, whistleblowers have an ethical duty to just that. But that ethical duty evaporates when the corporation fails to have an effective, adequate internal reporting mechanism. The question of moral obligation is not merely academic. Time after time, whistleblowers come forward because they perceive a wrong.

They do so because they believe they are. That is not to say that monetary incentives are not relevant; rather it is to say that the professional morality of whistleblowing is relevant, as well. It is this understanding that should bring about a renewed emphasis on creating the right corporate culture. If employers are willing to make a serious commitment to a culture of compliance, they very well may avoid becoming the next headline.

But despite what the U. Supreme Court may have you believe, corporations are not real people. Corporations are nothing more than groups of people coming to together to provide services and products. Using semantic shorthand does not grant license to forget that when referring to a corporation, the true reference is to hundreds or thousands of individuals.

A lone employee battling a monolithic corporation is compelling, but it can be a dangerous concept. Often, one or a few well-placed people perpetrate fraud and retaliation. When society strikes out at corporations involved in fraud, it is not doing so against a single wrongdoer.

Rather, the government and the markets sweep in the innocent employees and investors to punish sometimes just a few wrongdoers who were betraying those employees and investors as much, if not more, than the public at large. Take Enron, for example. The shareholders, many of whom were low-level employees, did nothing wrong.

An employee owes his employer a legal duty of loyalty. It is outcomes like that which makes it all that much harder to accurately track how prevalent whistleblowing is in the private sector. Public sector whistleblowing Recognizing the public value of whistleblowing has been increasing over the last 50 years.

In the United States, both state and Federal statutes have been put in place to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. The United States Supreme Court ruled that public sector whistleblowers are protected under First Amendment rights from any job retaliation when they raise flags over alleged corruption. Private sector whistleblowing protection laws were in place long before ones for the public sector.

After many federal whistleblowers were scrutinized in high-profile media cases, laws were finally introduced to protect government whistleblowers. These laws were enacted to help prevent corruption and encourage people to expose misconduct, illegal, or dishonest activity for the good of society. People who choose to act as whistleblowers often suffer retaliation from their employer. They most likely are fired because they are an at-will employee, which means they can be fired without a reason.

There are exceptions in place for whistleblowers who are at-will employees. Even without a statute, numerous decisions encourage and protect whistleblowing on grounds of public policy.

Statutes state that an employer shall not take any adverse employment actions any employee in retaliation for a good-faith report of a whistleblowing action or cooperating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or lawsuit arising under said action. Federal whistleblower legislation includes a statute protecting all government employees. In the federal civil service, the government is prohibited from taking, or threatening to take, any personnel action against an employee because the employee disclosed information that they reasonably believed showed a violation of law, gross mismanagement, and gross waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public safety or health.

What are the benefits of whistleblowing? Examples of whistleblower cases cover considerable territory, from accounting irregularities and government fraud to racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Is whistle blowing a good thing? Whistle blowing is universally accepted as a good thing.

Financial malpractice is the top concern reported by workers and yet over half of such concerns reported are not acted upon or ignored. How effective is whistleblowing? Effective whistleblower protection. Whistleblowing is one of the most effective ways of exposing malfeasance within an organisation. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, around 40 percent of all detected occupational fraud cases are identified by whistleblowers.

What are the two types of whistleblowing? There are two types of whistleblowing. The first type is internal whistleblowing. This means that the whistleblower reports misconduct to another person within the organization. The second type is external whistleblowing. What is the process of whistleblowing? Whistle blowing is generally viewed as a process rather than an event Near and Miceli, , where whistleblower give the information of fraud, or immoral act of the company to the employer or other parties, like the government.

Who is a famous whistleblower? As long as we have restrictive dominant hierarchies in place, whistleblowing will emerge bruised, because these dominant hierarchies have been deliberately designed to restrict human behavior. Hence, the paramount importance of transforming these dominant hierarchies into non-dominant and tropophilic hierarchies. Within non-dominant and tropophilic hierarchies whistleblowing becomes irrelevant because of the transparent nature of these structures, i.

First, the basic premise is that — even if an accuser or whistle blower is telling the truth — no one will trust the accuser or whistle blower in the future, because they will be viewed as a potential risk to the entity, management, other employees and future employers. No legislation against retaliation can stop this, because the accuser would have to afford lawyers willing to take the case, who must prove that any activity or behavior is the result of retaliation and not something that is justly deserved.

Fourth, it is important to obtain additional information to determine why someone would make an official accusation or be a whistle blower, given the high risk of a negative outcome — did they reach a critical tipping point?

Finally, it would be immensely useful to obtain a large random survey to determine how many people or employees have not filed accusations or been a whistle blower, although they had a justifiable reason to do so — why they did not do so? Reading this article reminds me of my own experience as a whistleblower. I would caution anyone who was thinking about whistleblowing to contact an attorney first. EEOC, etc.

It remains to be seen what will happen in that forum. Take it from me, as I would wish what has happened to me on no one. Re: M. Mohan comment — You make very important points. There are also other risk consequences to people not involved in the activities, including job losses, closure of facilities, etc. In addition, legal firms are in the business of making money, avoiding conflicts of interests and going against the best interests of the firm, so there are corporate and government entities they will not go against and clients they will not represent.

This is especially true if the offending party works closely with the potential whistleblower. Humans are social creatures; so naturally, we become close with the people we see every day in the office.

Blowing the whistle on our work friends can make us feel guilty, and that feeling can prevent workers from coming forward. Your company culture can also impact whistleblowing.

How can you create a culture of ethics and transparency in your organization? Remember: culture comes from the top. Your organization should make ethics a priority from day one, so your employees know they can come forward if they discover any wrongdoing.

How do you make ethics a priority in your company? There are many things you can do to encourage honest and ethical practices throughout your organization. Set up a compliance hotline where employees can report misconduct anonymously.

Post signage in your workplace to remind everyone of when and how to report what they see. Make ethics a key element of your employee training curriculum. All government bodies should have fairly straightforward lines of authority.

For example, if a councilperson has a problem with city staff, he or she would go to the city manager. If an employee of the water district sees wrongdoing, he or she would start with a supervisor and move up the chain of command, and so forth. The first thing a potential leaker should ask is the status of the information itself. If the information is clearly intended to be protected, then the leaker must meet a stiff test if he or she wants to leak it. The second consideration is whether the potential leaker has a specific obligation, legal or ethical, to protect the information, or has the information only because another person violated his or her obligation to keep it secret.

If so, then it is a much more serious matter to reveal it. The third consideration is whether the information is about public or private matters. The difficult cases, of course, are those where the private life of individuals arguably influences their public actions.

Hanson and Ceppos also argue that potential leakers must assess the good and harm their leak may do. When lives are at stake or millions of public dollars are being misappropriated, those concerns for the public good trump the harm to personal privacy or government secrecy. On the other hand, a leaker must determine if the conduct he or she is exposing represents actual wrongdoing or if it is simply represents a policy disagreement.

Closed-door sessions, however, are secret for a reason.