The Reluctant Security Guard
Companies in today’s society are often required to abide by an abundant amount of rules and regulations imposed upon them which stem from government and law enforcement authority. In analyzing the Case of “The Reluctant Security Guard” we will examine the decision making process which led to David Tuff effectively ‘whistle blowing’ for what he felt was the right thing to do.
The policy that was in place for David Tuff was ultimately an oath he subscribed to when he became a security guard, as well as his integrity of being a former U.S. Marine. He was required to abide by the Security Officer’s Manual, which included obeying the rules and regulations of the Superintendent of Police. There is no ambiguity
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Are the reasons for whistle blowing in line with reasons everyone can act upon in principle alone? Tuff met with two other security guards regarding the overall issues, they concurred with him that they too had grievances against the company policies. This act promotes the concept of universalizability, and how it can be applied to the moral dilemma that Tuff faced. He now had people on his side, this allowed him to gain emotional momentum which led him to speaking to the press shortly after he met with his co-workers. As far as reversibility applies to this examination, we could deduce that Tuff felt that his actions would be just in that it would apply to him if the table was turned and he was an innocent bystander waiting to bit hit by a drunk driver. Reversibility leads us to challenge the amount of moral worth in the sense of duty that Tuff had to his oath, and to society. There is no doubt Tuff felt that his duties as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a sworn in security guard outweighed the conduct and vision of the policy makers at the Blue Mountain Company.
An argument can be made that whistle blowing should only be warranted when there is a group or a majority that feels something should be brought to the attention of an outside authority if deemed so. As discussed in the study the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that since his actions were not a concerted effort among him and his colleagues, the
Review “Just pucker and blow: An analysis of corporate whistleblowers” in Chapter 2. Please respond to the following:
Whistle blowing in organizations can be an outstanding source of needed information to the organization. On the other side, that same information that is delivered can have a negative effect on the employee that has decided to take matters in to their own hands and inform management of potential unethical behavior. An article called “Nonprofit whistle-blower employee nets $1.6 million retaliation award” written by Tricia Gorman is in reference to an employee whistle-blower that her place of employment violated the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act, which is part of the organizations policy for hostile work environment.
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).
Whistleblowers’ motives often come under intense scrutiny, since the consequences of sensitive data disclosures can seriously impact an organization’s operations, finances, and public image (Lawrence & Weber, 2014)
Whistleblowing should be praised. From the utilitarian point of view, whistleblowing poses a unique challenge. In either the action to blow the whistle or not there is some reverse happiness or pain produced. In the case of Spc. Darby his decision to seven members of the company
This definition captures clearly the traditional use of the term in business contexts. In the context of research, however, the concept of whistleblowing seems to be understood a bit more broadly, so that it is not limited to public disclosures brought to an external entity. In what follows, I will use the term to refer to internal as well as external reporting to include situations in which a wrong-doer’s supervisor or department chair is notified of a researcher’s misconduct. This broader understanding may be an appropriate translation of the definition for the academic research context given the organizational and power structure differences between business and academia. The idea that there may be a moral requirement to report research misconduct is not novel. The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy has taken a position consistent with the above claim, stating that “someone who has witnessed misconduct has an unmistakable obligation to act” (COSEPUP, 2009). A similar requirement can be inferred from articles 1 and 10 in the IEEE Code of Ethics, which state that its members agree “to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment” and “to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics” (IEEE, 2006). In
The twentieth President of the United States once said: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable” (Quotes, 2008). When there is wrongful doing, illegal activity, or unethical behavior happening within a government industry or business it can be difficult to bring this information out in to the open for the public to know. Whistleblowers have the difficult ethical responsibility, with a lot of scrutiny that happens as well, when telling the truth about their findings about a company that is not doing the right thing. Whistleblowing can create a variety of feelings and ethical perspectives for all that might be involved or even just witness the process unfold and
The corruption rate in a community that does not support or protect reporting illegal activities is significantly high. Employees who work in public or private organizations are the first to identify wrongdoings in a workplace since they have up-to-date information. Whistleblowing can be an essential tool to identify and report these actions in the public, private and non-profit sectors. However, by revealing wrongdoings, whistleblowers often take high personal risks. Lacking strong legal protection might increase the change of facing dismissal, harassment and other forms of retaliation (“Whistleblower protection”, 2012).
Organizations that encourage a culture of whistleblowing by their employees have been known to be more transparent characterized by free employee communication and trust. The benefit of this is that wrongs can be easily detected, and it also promotes an ethical work environment (Berry, 2004).However, whistleblowing is not an easy thing that anyone can do especially in an organization. It always come with consequences that may not only affect the whistleblower but often those he cares deeply about such as spouse and
There are various cases about whistleblowing, one of them is the case of Motorola CFO, Paul Liska.1 He has been fired after giving a presentation. In the presentation, Liska pointed out to Motorola directors that the cell phone unit, Mobile Devices, missed its sales projection for the preceding three months. Liska intended to attack Sanjay Jha, the head of Motorola’s cell phone division, by doing the presentation at the board meeting. The whistleblowing occurred because Liska and Jha did not get along well, and Liska tried to save the situation with an attack on Jha. Liska objected to Jha’s hiring, his compensation package and the co-CEO agreement. Liska’s behavior markedly deteriorated after Jha’s hiring,
However, can we say the whistleblowing is ethical, as a lot of lives can be ruined just on accusation? What are the main issues about blowing the whistle? To answer those questions, I’ll lay my observations on the William Cohan article on Wall Street whistle-blowers and especially with the case of Eric Ben-Artzi, former analyst at the Deutsche Bank, and apply it some business ethics theories.
I would like to share this paper as an attachment to this addendum because subject of study was inspired from the conversation that I had with Dr.O’Neill about subjects of thesis carried by cohorts at Adler University. For the future, my intention with respect to this paper is expanding its scope through reconsidering ‘whistle-blowing’ phenomena as a case study, which is a kind of concrete manifestation of courage in
Take the example of Mary, who has been working for a pharmaceutical company for seven years. Mary has progressed through the corporate ladder well, and was recently eyeing the position of operations manager. However, the company decided to promote James, who has been with the company a year longer than Mary. Due to the disappointment of losing out on this position, Mary decides to destroy the company’s reputation. She starts sending anonymous emails to the FDA, claiming that the company is distributing unapproved drugs to consumers. This type of whistle blowing is unacceptable and ethically
How easy or difficult was it for Michael Woodford to decide to be a whistleblower and what were the consequences to him personally?
Berry (2014) provides a similar explanation in claiming that employees crave consistency with their organizations moral ethics and their own personal ones. If there is a clash in these value’s the the employee’s organizational commitment and loyalty to the organization will be low. Whistleblowing is therefore seen as a clash between one’s organizational loyalty and one’s loyalty to society (Andrade,