Ethical Whistleblowing

In bureaucracy there is a separation of powers, checks, and balances, these internal checks are required because it brings accountability within the bureaucracy. There are four main types of mechanisms that can be put in place, whistleblowing, law judges, senior executive services and the representatives from the demographic. However, these different mechanisms have limited effect on the bureaucracy. Whistleblowing is one of the most effective mechanisms of accountability because superiors are reported on when they partake in any unethical behavior that put the government in a detriment. However, whistleblowing is not easy to do, even though there is a protection act in place for whoever partake in it but the case must be thoroughly be investigated

The various forms of retribution that whistle-blowers endure at the hands of employers both financially and psychologically for attempting to correct mismanagement, fraud, and dishonesty are often too much for the whistle-blower to bear. Careers are in jeopardy because individuals with strong ethics decide to pursue law suits against their employers. One example is where the US Forest Service employees found their careers ruined by either demotions or loss of jobs when caught speaking out in favor of the environment or sound science, or when

Jackson and Raftos (1997) referred to whistle blowing as an avenue of last resort. Employees find themselves in these situations when the authorities at their organisations have failed to take actions on reported issues affecting that organisation. Wimot (2000) likened whistleblowing to a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum whistleblowing would only cause minimal pain and scars on the stakeholders and organisation while on the other end is the worst scenario where the whistleblowing effects are turbulent and often experienced to be negative to all those involved (ibid).

Many employees seem to be fired for reasons that are either untrue or for wanting, to tell the truth about a business. One way to prevent these types of terminations from happening is to have the employee’s supervisor give a thorough explanation and reasoning for this employee’s termination to that supervisor’s boss. However, this may decrease some unethical management; there are still organizations that do not mind laying someone off unethically for the betterment of that organization’s profit. Another problem was about verbally harassing and threatening of an employee to sign an agreement or contract to keep unethical bosses from losing profits. This problem’s solution completely lies within the boss’s attitude toward this employee and the interactions they have with one another. The only way to keep an eye on this is for the board members are to get reviews from the subordinates about their boss and to keep that knowledge completely anonymous and

Well, according to Miceli, Nearand and Dworkin (2008), whistleblowing is an act of revealing wrongdoings in an organization by the former or current employees of the very organization. As such, a whistleblower is an individual who reveals wrongdoings within an organization to the public or the senior management. The key characteristics of a whistleblower include, but are not limited to, dissent, accusation, breach of loyalty, altruism, sportsmanship courtesy, conscientiousness and civic culture (Miceli, Near & Dworkin, 2008).

The Whistle-blower Policy is a concept that organizations encourage their employees and external clients to report any improper activities such as fraud, corruption, or any other illegal actions. (UC Berkeley, 2017) The Whistle-blower policy is from the 1960s, but it is nor effective policy.((Santa University, 2017) Most of the employees cannot raise their issues. Usually, the problem is concealed rather than solve, due to the lake of protection of privacy of whistle-blower, until the authorization

A person who uncovered any kind of details or facts that is unlawful, illicit, criminal, dishonest or incorrect within any corporation is known as whistleblower. A whistleblower has two options to bring information or accusation to surface by internally or externally. Internally, a whistleblower can lead his/her statement to awareness of other people within the accused corporation. Externally, a whistle-blower can also contact a third party outside of the corporation such as media.

Some of the key characteristics of the whistleblower are the ability to cause dissent, breach loyalty and withstand accusation. Dissent is important because it is one way of ensuring that large bureaucracies operate under a legal, efficient and ethical manner. However, blowing the whistle puts one’s loyalty against the public’s loyalty that may bring shame to the person exposed (Gao, 2011). Accusations result from disloyalty created against the public, and this is neglect and abuse of public interest.

Some however see it as an act of disloyalty to the employer who is the means of the employee’s livelihood. Duska argues in his article of “Whistleblowing and Employee loyalty” that is no obligation to loyalty because a company is not a person, it’s an instrument with a specific purpose of making a profit. He defines a loyalty relationship as

In summary, Wen and Chen established four hypotheses in addressing their beliefs on the positive relationships between various factors, including ethical leadership, moral identity, power distance orientation, and the intention of whistleblowing. The purpose of the study is to survey the degree of positive influence on subordinates concerning his or her pre-established moral character and mentality on the distribution of power, in reaction to ethical leaders (Wen & Chen, 2016). Thus, it implies that a person in authority who is unethical will likely foster a negative working environment, which in turn will promote the acceptance of immoral behavior from all employees.

When a person feels that something illegal or ethically wrong is happening in their place of work, what can they do? That person has the right to go to their administration about the acts that are occurring. (GAP) This action would be called whistle-blowing. Furthermore, whistle-blowers would be protected by law from repercussions from coming forward about the ethical or illegal issue. (Hallman, 2012) The organization that protects accountants and other financial professionals within the field of business is the IMA. For example, one case involving a whistle-blower within the accounting field was in 1989.

Sharon Watkins earned her 15 minutes of fame the honest way, as the Enron employee who blew the lid off of then CEO Ken Lay's debauchery. But for every celebrated whistleblower, there are hundreds who remain in the shadows. And for good Samaritans who do tell their tale, the price they pay can be exorbitant.

The concept of whistleblowing in modern days differs from citizens to public servants. From citizens’ perspective, this action is perceived positively because it promotes the public good, and for most public servants, this action is perceived negatively because it damages the reputation of the organization and can ultimately jeopardize national security.

Companies are often faced with ethical challenges, one of which is whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is when someone in the company reports the wrongdoing of another person. Two issues to address, whether the employee should blow the whistle and what the company should do to deal with the whistleblowing case. (Leech 2008) Some companies feel that whistleblowing is acceptable while some do not. Number of unethical activities can be reduced and solved in a short span of time when someone blows the whistle, allowing the management to know of the issue and take appropriate actions to avoid any unnecessary damage. On the other hand, some believed that whistleblowing can cause misunderstanding due to insufficient evidence and the company’s reputation may be affected if people from the external environment gets to know about their company’s problems.

Research speaks out that the person who blows the whistle is basically a trusted loyal employee. Also indicates chances that the person is a role model employee. It is the employees who have the responsibility to act ethically when he comes across evidence of such an unethical activity being done in the organization.