Whistle-blowing - Research Paper Example

Business, Research Paper   July 27, Whistle-blowing Characteristics of Watkins, Cooper and Rowley. These three courageous women were honored by the Time magazine as Persons of the year in 2002 because of their determination to seek the truth and their desire to protect their own organizations, in particular, and the public in general. They chose to put their professions and personal welfare in jeopardy and came forward with the truth.Are they whistle blowers or just doing their jobs well and with open eyes?

All of them had no desire to become whistle blowers and were just employees doing their jobs well with open eyes because they followed the code of ethics in reporting it to their superiors first and to the right persons in the organization. As high officials in the organization, they became privy to information that they thought would be damaging to the company. The Government Accountability Project (GAP) defined a whistle blower as: An employee who discloses information that s/he reasonably believes is evidence of illegality, gross waste or fraud, mismanagement, abuse of power, general wrongdoing, or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.

Typically, whistleblowers speak out to parties that can influence and rectify the situation. These parties include the media, organizational managers, hotlines, or Congressional members/staff, to name a few.These 3 women could not be properly called whistle blowers under the rules cited in Chap 4 of Whistle blowing,:“employees who follows established procedures is not a whistleblower” As in definition above, whistle blowing should take into account to whom the information is given in order to achieve the desired change.

Merely passing information to higher authorities in the organization is not whistle blowing and is only part of their duties. Their testimony in Congress could not be called whistle blowing as they were legally required to do so, and were not done voluntarily. Their memos only formed part of exhibits for testimony. Rowley could not be a whistle blower because her position requires utmost confidentiality, so she could not divulge to outer sources.Watkin’s advise. When Sherron Watkins wrote a lengthy memo to her boss, Ken Lay, she knew of the ticking time bomb that would explode into a scandal.

She uncovered fraud that involved many persons in the organization. When she advised Ken Lay to develop a “clean up Plan”, she probably meant to have an organizational clean up that would correct the system, and purge erring employees. In an ethical perspective, she was merely being loyal to the company, and following the Enron Code of Ethics that requires respect, integrity, excellence, and communication. She simply acted on the information to protect the interests of Enron and knew not of the plan to terminate her; so she could not be charged with retaliation and disloyalty.

ReferencesChapter 4. Case 4.1 Time’s Persons of the Year. Whistle-Blowing, p. 87-105 Retrieved 27 July 2012 fromwww.freewebs.com/./Whistleblowing.pdfGAP. (n.d.)Government Accountability Project Retrieved 25 July 2012 from http://www.whistleblower.org/about/what-is-a-whistleblower