Whistleblowing, The Problems and the Issue.

Whistleblowing,

The Problems and the Issue

Introduction

Whistleblowing is a very hot topic in ethical behaviour. It not only has a strong influences on the whistleblowers but also on the organizations. It caused some problems for both of them,too. And there is also an issue relevanting to it a valid method to control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility.

This essay will describe some conceptions of whistleblowing and then some problems associated with whistleblowing for whistleblowers and the organizations. The second part will focus on the argument of it as a valid method to control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility.

Conceptions of whistleblowing

Whistleblowing, generally, means speaking out in a wasteful, harmful and illegal act to the public (Schermerhorn, el, 2004). Most attention, though, is focused on a narrower range of behaviours. A typical whistleblower is an employee in a government department or private corporation who makes a formal complaint about misdeeds of the employer (Martin, 1999, a).

Strictly speaking, there are also some specific conceptions of whistleblowing defined by researcher in this filed.

William defines a whistleblower as "a concerned citizen, totally or predominantly motivated by notions of public interest, who initiates of her or his own free will, an open disclosure about significant wrongdoing directly perceived in a particular occupational role, to a person or agency capable of investigating the complaint and facilitating the correction of wrongdoing."(1995) Another is "the disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action."(Near & Miceli, 1995) Well, Another is the "unauthorized disclosure of information that an employee reasonably believes is evidence of the contravention of any law, rule or regulation, code of practice, or professional statement, or that involves mismanagement, corruption, abuse of authority, or danger to public or worker health and safety."(Vinten, 1994)

In summary, the whistleblower can be seen as an employee exposing the wrongdoing of his or her employer. However, there are still a lot of problems that addressing.

Problems on whistleblowers

Firstly, whistleblowers are often prone to be attacked. The power of the organization is turned against them physically and psychologically, which includes tension between by colleagues, spreading of rumours, formal reprimands, transfer to positions with no work or too much work, demotion, dismissal and blacklisting (Martin, 1999, a).

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Secondly, they cannot gain trust from others. Usually, whistleblowers are hard working and conscientious employees. When they see something wrong, they speak out in the expectation that their complaint will be treated seriously. However, in most cases, neither the employers nor the public will trust them in the beginning. Nevertheless, many whistleblowers believe that someone, somewhere or sometimes will provide justice. Without such a believe, it would be difficult to persevere several years or even decades (Martin, 1999, a). However, there are other means of distrust, they cannot gain trust by their new employers if they go to a new workplace. A good example is when they obtain a new job in another company, they usually get disunissed after their new employers found out about their whistleblowing. So, they lost their job, their home, their credit rating, their sense of personal safety and their self-esteem as a breadwinner (Glazer, P., M. & Glazer, M., P.).

Problems for organizations

On the other hand, there are also some problems for organizations caused by whistleblowing. It can be seen both internally and externally as problematic.

Firstly, the internal problems include bed treatment of staff, favouritism, male domination, lying colleagues, office politics, being required to lie, chasing the poor for debts, repossessions, sexism, carrying out decision democratically reached disagrees with, organisational hypocrisy, contempt of officers for lay officials, corrupt appointments: deciding when to take industrial action (Goodwin, 2000). These problems will effect the organizations in many ways, such as decline in efficiency. They can consume much energy of organizations.

Secondly, the external problems are the main focus of the relationship between the organizations and the customers. When whistleblowers report some unethical actions of the organizations, it must influence the relationship of the organizations and its stakeholders, who are the individuals, groups and institutions directly affected by an organization’s performance (Schermerhorn, el, 2004). However, in some cases, the whistleblowers do not prepare well or even do not have enough evidence to blowing whistles (Martin, 1999, b).

The issue on whistleblowing

The issue regarding whistleblowing is that does it a valid method to control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility. Some researchers think of whistleblowing as a good way to control unethical behaviour. Miceli and Near believe that a framework within the organization to encourage internal whistleblowing is established no a level of responsibility, which includes the setting up of telephone hotlines, suggestion boxes, arbitration, internal organisational development consultantious, employee assistance program (EAPs), arbitration and an in-house panel (1994). They also referred to the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as an example. IBM receives up to 18,000 letters from workers making confidential complaints under a “Speak Up” program in one year (1994), although, of course, not all complaints involve wrongdoing. Some researchers believe that the internal whistleblowers can help organizations to avoid wrongdoing in organization. Figg suggests that the internal whistle blower complaints should report directly to a chief manager who can report them directly to the highest levels of management (2000). It can avoid organizations getting into trouble. Whistleblowing expert, Garvey, suggests encouragement of internal whistleblowing should occur if, instead of an internally operated anonymous tip hotline, companies used one managed by an outside party (Figg, 2000).

However, some other researchers believe that whistleblowing is not a valid method to control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility, which means that whistleblowing is not so useful as some people’s thought. Perhaps there are few victories for whistleblowers, because there are some problems in the formal channels. However, many whistleblowers experience that the formal system does work after all (William De Maria & Cyrelle Jan, 1996). The reasons for this are categorical. Appeal bodies are part of the wider system of power and usually seek or reach accommodation with other powerful groups. Hence such bodies are highly unlikely to support a single individual against elites from a major organization, who usually have links with elites in some other places. Sometimes appeal bodies have a crusading spirit, but these ones usually are lacking in funds or come under attack themselves (Martin, 1999, a). Nevertheless, if some whistleblowers can survive in the process, they are typically attacked personally and often have their careers destroyed. However, even very few more successful whistleblowers may obtain some related compensation, such as a monetary pay-off as part of a court settlement. But has the organization changed at all? In some cases new policies are introduced, but in others the situation even get worse than before, since the harsh treatment of whistleblowers sends a potent message to other potential dissidents about what might happen to them should they release information relating to the firm. A lone whistleblower that is ruthlessly squashed may leave a corrupt organization less open to change than before. Policies occasionally may change as a result of whistleblowing, but not systems of hierarchy, division of labor, profit motive, patriarchy and the like (Martin, 1999, a).

For the whistleblowers that speak out have no interest in changing the structures of organizations at the beginning. They speak out just to deal with a particular problem within the existing structures. For the same reason, they typically pursue their cases through formal channels (Martin, 1999, a). It is only by making a social analysis of the roots of social problems that the idea of changing structures can arise. Even the whistleblowers who change the organizations’ structures do so only because the process blowing whistles progressed without the organizations’ control.

Even though there are so few successful whistleblowers, the problem is not because of the whistleblowing itself, but the wrong process and the low efficiency of formal channels. In order to institute reporting procedures or implement problem-solving policies, an internal communication audit is recommended. An audit is defined as a process of exploring, examining, monitoring, or evaluating something (Downs, 1988). A communication audit focuses on communicative practices within the organization such as wastefulness and malpractice (Scott, Shaw, Timmerman, Frank & Quinn, 1999). An internal communication audit will give the organization insight into the quality and quantity of the present internal communication channels, which are essential to increase the changes for internal whistle blowing. The audit, which is usually conducted under the aegis of the public relations department, will also discover factors that obstruct or limit the use of internal communication channels. The results of the audit can function as a starting point to encourage internal whistle blowing and management of identified problems, which should form part of an issues management plan (Brujins & McDonald, 2002).

And furthermore Miceli & Near suggest that it should identify clear and prepare correct communication channels and identify those to whom whistleblowers should report, the company needs to establish a code of ethics and policies and develop procedures regarding the desired actions which the organization should take after internal reporting. Everyone in the organization must understand what types of activities are considered wrong and what he or she should do when it is happened (1994).

Conclusion

The whistleblowing can control unethical actions in some ways, especially the internal whistleblowing. However, we should not think it so useful in every aspects of ethic. It can control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility in some degrees, however, it should not be taken as the only valid method to control unethical behaviour and to establish a level of social responsibility.

References

Brujins, C. and McDonald, L., Encouraging Whistle Blowing as A Crisis Prevention Strategy, International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM) 2002 Conference, Queensland Australia

Downs, C. W., Communication audits. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, & Company, 1988

Figg, J. Whistle blowing. The Internal Auditor. Altamonte Springs. April. 2000.

Gerald Vinten, Whistleblowing--fact and fiction. An introductory discussion, in Vinten, Whistleblowing--Subversion or Corporate Citizenship? London: Paul Chapman, 1994, p. 5.

Goodwin, B., Ethics at work, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 2000, p.113

Martin, B., The Whistleblower’s Handbook, Jon Carpenter Publishing, Oxfordshire & Envirobook, Sydney, 1999, b, p.3

Martin, B., Whistleblowing and non-violence, Published in Peace and Change, Vol. 24, No. 3, January 1999, a, p. 15-28.

Myron Peretz Glazer and Penina Migdal Glazer, The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry, Basic Books, New York, 1989; p. 146

Near, J. P. and. Miceli, M. P., Organizational dissidence: The case of whistle-blowing, Journal of Business Ethics, 4, 1985, p. 4.

Schermerhorn, J.R., Campling, J., Poole, D., Wiesner, R., (2004) Management, An Asia-Pacific Perspective, John Wiley & Sons, Brisbane

Scott, A.R., Shaw, S.P., Timmerman, E., Frank, V., and Quinn, L., Using communication audits to teach organisational communication to students and employees, Business Communication Quarterly, December. 1999

William De Maria and Cyrelle Jan, Behold the shut-eyed sentry! Whistleblower perspectives on government failure to correct wrongdoing, Crime, Law & Social Change, Vol. 24, 1996.

William De Maria, Quarantining dissent: the Queensland public sector ethics movement, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 54, No. 4, December 1995, p. 447