Insider Discussion Questions

Engdahl mentions how the "structures for white-collar crimes consists of: financial self-interests, low priority of control, and interpretative primacy" (Chapter 44). Chapter 44 also mentions how "white-collar crimes happen because of individuals access to authority, social contract networks and technical-administrative systems" (Chapter 44, pg. 544). Chapter 44 also mentions how, "individuals position at the work place build up barriers that could possibly hinder others from controlling a course of events such as; obstructing suspicion and detection, through their impeding investigation and implementation of sanctions through their preventing legal actions once suspicion is detected" (Chapter 44, 543-544).

Formal organizations who are increasingly getting involved with white-collar crime, are aimed at achieving organizational goals. Organizational culture is embodied with the structures of the organization in its wake

Identify what you believe to be the most important specific critical incident having to do with conflict in the film and develop questions, comments, or interventions that might have facilitated the group’s understanding of the conflict and/or changed the outcome of the incident.

Undoubtedly, the corporate executives’ and in some cases managers’ greed literally destroyed the credibility and reputation of the entire corporations. As indicated by Friedrichs (2012), if executives and managers are best positioned to steal millions, sometimes lower-level employees succeed in doing so as well. Unfortunate, these white-collar crimes are increasing in society. As a matter of fact, estimates provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) routinely suggested that far more is lost to white-collar crimes than to traditional property crimes such as larceny, robbery, and burglary. In addition, white-collar offenses have the potential to cause serious physical and emotional damage to victims (Payne, 2016).

It used to be that whistleblowers were applauded, and they still are in the private sector, but it seems as if government whistleblowers are criticized and many are even criminally charged. There is certainly a different take on their activities. In fact, some advocates counsel federal employees not to come forward with information because if they do, their lives will be destroyed (Shulman, 2007). What often happens is that they will never be able to work in their careers again in the same capacity (Shulman, 2007). Many whistleblowers not only lose their jobs, but they lose their families and friends, and much of their money ends up going to attorneys (Shulman, 2007). Indeed, in today’s day and age, there is a surge of whistleblowers

White-collar crime is a term that describes a diverse amount of corporate and individual crimes ranging from fraud, bribery and public corruption to environmental crimes such as air and water pollution in addition to illegal dumping (Adler, Mueller, & Laufer, 2016). White-collar crimes are far from being victimless and as a matter of fact, depending on the sophistication level of the scheme, the ability to destroy companies, cost investors millions of dollars and devastate families is very plausible. Such crimes can generally be differentiated from others based on the use of deception, concealment and breaches of trust. The primary motivation behind white-collar crimes is usually monetary and includes reasons such as attaining or avoiding

In contrast, street crimes are generally seen as crimes of the individual, save for some gang activities (lecture notes). As an example, in the Enron film (2005), some of the white collar criminal acts were carried out by individual actors, but then adopted or covered up by the corporation itself. Though Louis Borget’s actions of funneling company funds to offshore banks and account were individual criminal acts, Enron’s endorsement of these practices (via CEO Kenneth Lay), places Enron itself into the perpetrator’s role (Enron,

Whistle-blowers, as the stereotype enforces, are driven by a desire to cause maximum damage through negative headlines. They are illustrated to be fueled by their own agenda or ego and to have no desire in going through the typical outlets of expression. In reality, however, it is almost always the opposite that is true. Executives or individuals in positions of authority may often have a chance to prevent whistle-blowing becoming publicly damaging, yet often down the opportunity due to the detrimental consequences it may have on them politically or economically.

Whistleblowing can be described as the disclosure of illegal, immoral, underhand or unlawful transactions, deals or practices of their employers or companies to people, institutions that are most likely to take action. What sets whistleblowing apart from other types of disclosures such as a tell-all is that it is made for the purpose of reporting wrongdoing in a company or organization to an agency or person that can take some actions. Whistleblowing is gaining popularity at such a fast pace, and more people are coming forward with dirty deals of their companies in the hope that something can be done about it. The reasoning behind whistleblowing is that the rights and interests of the public are hampered and interfered with by organizational abuses that go against the accepted societal norms and may breed inefficiency if something is not done about it (Weinstein, 1979).

The concept of white-collar crime was first explained in the field of criminology by a professor known as Edwin Sutherland in the year 1941 (Sutherland, Geis & Goff, 1983). He defined this type of crime as a one which is committed by persons of respectability and high social class in the course of their occupation. Examples of such a crime include infringement of patents, false advertisements, publication of falsified information such as balance sheet for a particular business, concealment of defects in goods that are meant for sale and passing of products (Braithwaite, 1985). White collar crimes are such that the damage caused can spread to the whole public and to some extent the effect is always trifling.

Whistleblowers are strong and brave people, for example employees, who recognize a wrong behavior of someone or their organization and want to do something against it in order to see that this behavior, or the wrong actions taken, are corrected – for them it is a matter of ethical responsibility, and they need to do it to feel comfortable in their skin. An advantage of this behavior is that the Whistleblowers feel a deep satisfaction making a substantial contribution toward the welfare of society. Of course, personal gratification isn’t the only benefit of becoming a whistleblower. For example, in qui tam cases under the federal False Claims Act, Congress decided to give whistleblowers

The number of whistleblowing incidents has increased exponentially in recent years. Two of the most major being Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins (Whistleblowers of both Worldcom and Enron). There has been an increase in exposure of current wrongdoings to the supervisory bodies and enforcement agencies worldwide. (Bowen et al., 2008). It's sometimes said that Ralph Nader came up with the term, but the practice of whistleblowing goes back to the late 19th century. British personnel of the government, in the form of local unarmed police or "bobbies," would "blow the whistle" so that good samaritans could be alerted to help chase and apprehend thieves. (Griscom, 2014). For acts of exposure to be considered "whistleblowing" there

Businesses today, more than ever, are under scrutiny by the public and its stakeholders. With an enormous pressure to be ethical, businesses produce and implement policies for the organization to abide by. On the other hand, it may be easier for businesses to think in their best interest than the interest of the public, causing unethical behavior. Then, a business may have employees that feel an obligation to the public and society to expose its negligence. Whistleblowers are “people who expose negligence, abuse or danger such as professional misconduct or incompetence that exists in the organization in which they work” (Ray 438). Whistleblowing transpires when an employee unearths an action to the public, either out of responsibility to their

Over the last forty years this country has seen an increase in corruption and greed both within the corporate world as well as within our own government. Since that time Whistleblowing, or the deliberate non-obligatory act of disclosure, which gets onto public record and is made by a person who has or had privileged access to data or information of an organization, about non-trivial illegality or other wrongdoing whether actual, suspected or anticipated which implicates and is under control of that organization, to an external entity having potential to rectify the wrongdoing.1 Both federal and state statutes and regulations have been created to protect these individuals from various forms of retaliation. Even without a statute,

A whistleblower is said to be an individual who discloses information which is considered as unethical about an organization either to the general public or the top management of the organization. One of the key characteristics of a whistleblower is courage. So as to survive the war, whistleblowers must be fearless and courageous since the battle between them and the organization might last for an extended period. Whistleblowers are also known, to be honest individuals who stand by the truth. They are expected to provide correct unethical practices of an organization. Another essential characteristic is that whistleblowers are often guided by their ethical standard which is mostly known to be very high (Schmidt, 2016). Their moral values and beliefs cannot be easily changed or influenced. Whistleblowers are also well-educated individuals since they have to know their rights before engaging in war with corporate organizations. They are mostly loyal to ethics than they are to the organization.