The Concepts, Theories and Critics Arguments Associated With Whistle Blowing - Essay Example

Whistleblowing Introduction Whistle blowing is an act of exposing any misconduct, illegal or dishonest activity, which is taking place in an organisation. The examples of the misdoings can be any activity that does not comply by the laws and regulations or can even be a direct threat to public interest like, corruption, fraud and safety issues. The whistleblower is often repressed by the organisation against whom he spoke, related organisations or by law (Mitchell, n.d.). Whistleblowing is a practice, which needs to be looked after very carefully. The whistleblowers are the ones who can help to bring in sanity in any organisational practice or government, where the incumbents mostly abuse their power or positions by involving in wrong practices for either the company’s or self-benefit. It is the whistleblowers who can bring these wrongdoings under check by exposing the wrong-doers in public. Though the whistleblowers work for better public interest, there is no law to safeguard them from the imminent organisational pressure (Johnson, 2003). Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Many attempts have been made to define the process of Whistle Blowing. According to James, (1995, p. 409), Whistle blowing is “an attempt by an employee or former employee of an organization to disclose what he or she believes to be wrongdoings in or by the organization.” According to Johnson (2000), whistle blowing is significant disclosure of unethical, illegal as well as harmful practices in an organization to certain authorized and standard groups who have the power to take action. In general, these information disclosures are considered as favoring public interest by exposing any activity that involves unauthorized or improper utilization of public funds, information regarding criminal activities, improper bending of justice and danger to safety or health of an individual or any other malpractice. At the same time, critics have argued that whistle blowing can create negative impact on interpersonal relationships such s between co-workers in an organization and the whistle blower. They even end up being enemies or completely ignore the whistleblower in order to escape their wrongdoings. Whistle blowers can be external or internal and depends on the party or group to whom the whistleblower complaints. Internal whistleblowers are those making complaints within the firm, such as to the top management. On the other hand, if the whistle blower makes complaint to a group or party external to the organization, like any law enforcement firm or government, then the person will be termed as external whistleblower. According to Erkmen, Calıskan and Esen (2014), whistle blowing can be influenced by numerous factors. For instance, absence of relevant laws increases the changes of discrimination and thereby chances of violating a law. Also, whistle blowing is differs for different organizational structures. Shawver (2008) has argued that bureaucratic, authoritarian and hierarchal organisations are less susceptible to whistle blowing issues. External blowing is more common in highly regulated sectors such as insurance and financial services and these industries are controlled by numerous external regulatory agencies. Prior studies have revealed that people with high professional status are more prone to blow the whistle as the level of support they receive from organisation as well as outside. Also, these individuals are highly experienced and do not succumb to organisational pressure as they have ample of opportunities outside their employer’s realms. Further, research have found out that women are more external blowers compared to men, showing that their trust towards the internal organisation is less compared to their male counterparts. According to Dasgupta and Kesharwani (2010), whistle blowers are generally moderately powerful, well-paid and relatively experienced, high performing, morally compulsive as well as comparatively more proactive in terms of observing and responding to organisational issues. Whistle blowing has different impacts in different countries too. In some countries, such as the US, whistle blowing can create a significant impact to the entire organisation. Whistle blowing is presently considered seriously in the US (Miceli, et al., 2013). European Committee on Legal-Cooperation has formulated an effective regulation in order to safeguard the whistleblowers and encourage more people to come out in public with any illegal activities, which are being practised by organisations wherein they are associated (Council of Europe, 2014; (Vandekerckhove, 2012). Whereas, it has been found out that the U.S. laws are yet to be conducive for the whistleblowers. It has been claimed that the laws formulated for whistleblowers in the U.S. do not offer any protection to them (Moss, 2010; Kimball, 2014). This reflects the fact that there lies an excessive risk of exposing the wrong practices of countries for the probable whistleblowers. This risk has deterred people from exposing the wrong. Though the concept of whistle blowing has been age old, presently it is receiving considerable attention through emergence of improved media (PWC, 2012; Lewis, 2013). Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005) focussed on retaliation and its effect on organisational-employee relationship. It has been observed that corrupt high rank officials, who have power, often make whistle blower’s life miserable. Even after the act of whistle blowing, many times high ranked officials come clean and at the same time, the life of the whistle blower in the organisation is made difficult (Livewire. 2014). Management retaliation of whistle blowing is a situation where the whistle blower is silenced either by trying to bribe the whistle blower or by changing the loyal employee to a political activist (The Hindu, 2014; The Firm, 2014; Mitchell, et al., 1999). According to a study conducted by McDonald and Ahern (2002), both non-whistleblowers and whistleblowers (64 and 70 percent respectively) faced physical and psychological problems such as stress-induced pressure, under circumstances whistle blowing. According to various survey reports, almost every whistle blower has reported official reprisals such as transfer, demotion, psychiatric referral and reprimand. Unofficial reprisals included threats, social isolation, forced resign as well as ostracism (McDonald and Ahern, 2002) Whistle blowing: Business cases The above section helped in detailed understanding of the concepts, theories and critics arguments associated with whistle blowing. The current section will discuss about the context of whistle blowing taking examples from two different organisational cases (Mitchell, et al., 2012). Case 1: Among the very few success stories in this concept, one of the famous have been when a whistle blowing heart doctor won the tribunal case after airing hospital safety fears. The doctor has exposed about the hospital’s poor care and fatal condition wherein the patients have to stay. Dr. Raj Mattu spoke against the hospital’s “five-in-four” policy, under which the hospital provides an extra bed in the bay intended for only four patients, thereby making the place crowded and unhealthy for patients. Dr. Mattu was unfairly sacked by University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust in 2010. The trust has also spent £6 million to malign Dr. Mattu’s image (Campbell, 2014). Despite these efforts against Dr Mattu, he won the case over the trust and hospital. The court has also asked the trust to be supportive to whistleblowers so that conditions of the hospitals can be improved and the death rate can be checked. Case 2: Another striking example, where a whistleblower has been rewarded for his deed is Bradley Barkenfeld, a former UBS AG banker. He had brought forth the bank’s technique of evading tax (Grand, 2013). The prosecutors were provided with detailed descriptions about the bank’s ways to promote evasion of tax, which have also confessed about running errands for rich clients. This event has raised the curtain of Swiss Bank’s secrecy policy, which helped rich people worldwide to evade taxes. This bold revelation has uncovered the names of many rich individuals who have evaded taxes for years, who then had to pay all the accrued taxes along with a penalty, which brought in more than $5 billion in the U.S. account. This event had hugely benefitted the country. Mr. Barkenfeld has been acquitted of minor charges and been hugely rewarded by the U.S. government with an amount of $104 million for this noble deed (Sidel and Saunders, 2012). Conclusion From the above survey, it is evident that organisations need to protect their whistle blowers and need stringent laws and policies so that the interest, security and safety of whistleblowers are maintained and preserved. In the present business environment, where most organisations are cooperative towards whistle blowers, companies need to shape their strategies towards these noble workers (Ravishankar, 2014). Though the companies have internal mechanism to encourage whistleblowers, companies need to further motivate employees to oppose unethical acts, which has become important after introduction of the new whistleblower programme by SEC (Roberts, Olsen and Brown, 2009). SEC has announced to offer a bounty to the whistleblower (Bloxham, 2011). The companies need to motivate employees to bring the revelation, if any, to the notice of the management and not run for the cash reward that is promised by SEC. According to SEC, with effective establishment of the culture of accountability in the top management, the whistleblower would not highly consider reporting to SEC as the only way to correct the wrong doing (Good Corporation, 2013). This culture can only be formed by creating an internal policy of reporting any unethical deeds practised by anyone in the organisation to the management. A strong commitment must be shown by the management regarding properly acknowledging the whistleblowers. It also has to be looked after that the revelation is properly investigated and followed up in a prompt manner. The management must obtain feedback from the employees regarding any changes required in the organisation’s whistleblowing process. Reference List Bloxham, E., 2011. How to encourage the right kind of whistleblowers. Fortune, 15 June. Campbell, D., 2014. Whistleblowing heart doctor who aired hospital safety fears wins tribunal case. The Guardian, 17 April. Council of Europe, 2014. How to protect whistleblowers? [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Dasgupta, S. and Kesharwani, A., 2010. Whistleblowing: A survey of literature. The IUP Journal of Corporate Governance, 9(4), pp. 57-70. Erkmen, T., Calıskan, A. O. and Esen, E., 2014. An empirical research about whistleblowing behaviour in accounting context. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, 10(2), pp. 229-243. Good Corporation, 2013. How to make whistleblowing work. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Grand, G., 2013. 5 Famous whistleblowers who shaped history. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Johnson, A. R., 2003. Whistleblowing: When it works--and why. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Kimball, S., 2014. US whistleblower laws offer no protection. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Lewis, P., 2013. Bradley Manning given 35-year prison term for passing files to WikiLeaks. The Guardian, 21 August. Livewire, 2014. Intelligence, security and privacy – why we need the whistleblowers. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. McDonald, S. and Ahern, K., 2002. Physical and emotional effects of whistle blowing. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 40(1), pp.14-27. Mesmer-Magnus, J. R. and Viswesvaran, C., 2005. Whistleblowing in organizations: An examination of correlates of whistleblowing intentions, actions and retaliation. Journal of Business Ethics, 62, pp. 277-297. Miceli, P. M., Near, P. J. and Dworkin, T., 2013. Whistle-Blowing in organizations. London: Psychology Press. Mitchell, J., Lewis, J. and Bowers, J., 1999. Whistleblowing: The new law. London: Sweet & Maxwell. Mitchell, J., Lewis, J., Fodder, M. and Bowers, J., 2012. Whistleblowing: Law and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, J., no date. The Past and Future of Whistleblowing. [pdf] Fasken Martineau. Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Moss, S., 2010. Julian Assange: The whistleblower. The Guardian, 14 July. PWC, 2012. Whistle blowing effective means to combat economic crime. [pdf] Pwc. Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Ravishankar, L., 2014. Encouraging internal whistleblowing in organizations. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Read, W. J. and Rama, D. V., 2003. Whistle-blowing to internal auditors. Managerial Auditing Journal, 18(5), pp. 354-362. Roberts, P., Olsen, J. and Brown, A., 2009. Whistling while they work. [pdf] Griffith University. Available at: [Accessed 28 June 2014]. Shawver, T., 2008. What accounting students think about whistleblowing, management. Accounting Quarterly, 9(4), pp. 33-41. Sidel, R. and Saunders, L., 2012. Whistleblower gets $104 million. The Wall Street Journal, 11 September. The Firm, 2014. Making whistle blowing programs successful in India Inc. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28 June2014]. The Hindu, 2014. Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill passed. The Hindu, 23 February. Vandekerckhove, W., 2012. Whistleblowing and organizational Social Responsibility: A global assessment. London: Gower Publishing. Read More