Should You Speak Out or Forever Keep Your Place? An Ethical Dilemma about Whistleblowing
Abstract
Introduction
Whistleblowing – it is a term that refers to the action of an employee who chooses to report illegal, unethical, or not correct activities taking place in an organization of which they witnessed. To touch on this subject, we first need to truly understand all meanings of whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is not only referring to external, many people think that it only means to expose it to the public. However, it can be internal as well, for example, when you disclose it to higher authority personnel in the organization. Whistleblowing can put an organization in danger, it can affect the cohesiveness of a company, it can threaten their company structure, and most importantly it can destroy their public image. Nonetheless, many people are afraid to whistle blow, not only because they might lose the court case but all the troubles during and after you blow the whistle. On the other hand, whistleblowing is not completely negative, whistleblowing can help organizations correct illegal or unethical practices.
Believe it or not, the term whistleblowing came from a metaphor, it derived from a referee’s use of a whistle to call a foul in a sporting event. To make a choice rather to whistle blow can be extremely difficult. It is like choosing to save your mother or your wife question. You have a few options, to blow the whistle, to keep quiet and keep your job, or to walk away and start somewhere new. Each one of them has different consequences, which I will mention later in the article. Therefore, whistleblowing can be a catch 22, because there might be positive and negative consequences as you blow the whistle.
Ethical Point of View
Before we dive in deeply to whistleblowing, we should be looking at the ethical point of view. Not everyone has the same ethics in mind as you do, what is considered ethical to him may not be the same to you. How each person looks at ethics can change the way they judge and make decisions. For example, one may think that it is unethical to take away $1,000 from one person, but he may think that it is okay to take away $1 from a thousand people. In fact, people have different values, it is hard to judge who is right or wrong. Your boss might value money more than any other factors; in his standpoint, he wants to make as much money as possible. However, you might value business ethics over money. After all, you choose to blow the whistle on your boss for his illegal or unethical activities. Are you still ethical, when all the innocent employees get laid off just because one person’s action? If you choose to keep quiet about it, then your boss’s unethical behavior can go rampage.
Whistleblowing Behavior
Whistleblowing involves the following elements: 1) The plaintiff – which means the one who is blowing the whistle, 2) the illegal or unethical activity that is being reported, 3) the person, the people, or the organization who is/are committing the activity, 4) the defendants – the person or people who is/are receiving the complaint. (Dasgupta & Kesharwani, 2010; Keenan, 2000; Near & Miceli, 1996, 2008).
As I had mentioned earlier, whistleblowing is not only for external, it can be internal as well. However, when we use the term whistleblowing, we often refer to external activities. It is true that many whistleblowers report illegal or unethical behavior via both internal and external channels, but why often they tend to choose report externally? The reason behind it was that they have tried blowing the whistle internally; due to whatever reason, it was not successful. Therefore, they have turned to the external force by reporting it outside the company.
Additionally, there is a big difference between internal and external whistleblowing. Internal whistleblowing can allow the organization to right their wrongs, it is like given a second chance before exposing it to the public. External whistleblowing, on the other hand, can do some serious damage to the company. Not only that it might take away their public image or reputation, as the same time it can destroy the organization entirely or even cause it to be shut down. Since whistleblowing is an unauthorized disclosure, it could do some harm to both individuals and the organization. Reasonably, people often view whistleblowing as a disloyal action to the organization, not only that your current company will dislike you it might make you have a hard time to look for your next job as well. A whistleblower may be viewed as traitors; it will be hard if you want to be hired again. If your interviewer knows that you have a history of whistleblowing, he or she might have to think twice before hiring you. The fact that if you can blow your whistle to your previous company, you might do the same to their new company that you are about to enter. Ultimately, making the decision on whistleblowing can be extremely difficult.
Whistleblowing Judgment and Influence
Now that we know whistleblowing can be a difficult decision to make and it can involve many complex consequences afterward. Even though some situations can be complicated, this does not mean that silence is golden and your only option is to give in. A lot of factors can change your decision about whistleblowing. Situations such as: your satisfaction about your company or the people in it, your ethical point of view, your relationship with the person who’s doing the wrongdoings, your personalities (are you a strict person or person that can work around the rules), your job or future job and many more on the list.
You may be bribed into keeping your mouth shut; however, once you accepted the offer, you will become one of them. There is no going back, and therefore you must think deeply before taking any actions. Another example, a whistleblower was forced to drop her case because the legal representation believed that she did not have a chance of winning. In fact, most people who do the wrongdoings make a lot of dirty money, therefore, there is no surprise that they can use the money to get a better attorney to win that case. These were examples of direct and indirect influence on the whistleblower.
Another factor that affects whistleblower’s judgment is the seriousness and the levels of wrongdoing they are seeing. Whistleblower’s attitude can change depending on how acceptable is the illegal or unethical act. A famous saying, “If you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it” (Google CEO) As a result of you doing an illegal or unethical act, there will be consequences behind it. Researchers proposed that the seriousness level of wrongdoing can also affect whistleblower from reporting internally or externally. Employees tend to report low-level and less serious wrongdoings internally, and they are more likely to report externally for higher level and more serious ones. (Callahan & Dworkin, 1992; Dworkin & Baucus, 1998) Overall, it is clear to me that the higher level of serious wrongdoings are more favorable for whistleblowers to blow their whistles. Oppositely, the lower level of serious wrongdoings is less favorable for whistleblowers to blow their whistles.
Intention of Whistleblowing
Most people do not just whistle blow without any intention, they must have their reason behind it. In most cases, when people discover a wrongdoing act in the company, they are more likely to just ignore it other than reporting it. It is kind of the norms around the business world, people do not report it unless it is a serious level activity or they have an intention for it.
One will not blow the whistle without a plan because they know once they blow the whistle they can never go back. It is likely that they will not be able to stay with their company after they blow the whistle, either the company will shut down (if you have successfully blown the whistle) or the company will no longer want you (if you did not success in blowing the whistle).
Before deciding to blow the whistle, there is an important question that you need to ask yourself: it is worth it? This can be one scary proposition that you must make, many whistleblowers were hurt by their own action when they choose to blow the whistle. You can seriously put yourself and your career at risk, you will destroy the relationship between you and your company and in the worst case, you may be retaliated.
Overall, if a person has decided to blow the whistle, he or she must have a strong negative intention behind the decision, causing him or her to break apart the company. With that being said, we can see that a more aggressive and ambitious whistleblower can have a high intention to reveal the wrongdoings within an organization, which negatively impacts the company.
The fearful Retaliation
Another reason why people choose not to whistle blow is because they fear retaliation. A simple example will be, in a high school when you saw someone doing something wrong, then you tell the teacher. After the person found out you have reported him, he came and beat you up for it. Same thing applies the today’s world; a research shows that many people disapprove whistleblowing. They consider whistleblowing is a betrayal to the company, or more often used words like tattling or ratting (Zhang et al., 2009).
In most cases, retaliation is quite common to whistleblowers thus, in extreme cases people even hired professionals to threaten whistleblowers’ lives or their loved ones’ lives. For example, a documentary shows that 1 out of 87 whistleblowers had reported that they experienced retaliation after their disclosure. These samples were from both government and private industry. The individual stated that there is nothing could be proved so he cannot do anything about the retaliation. Although another survey, based on a different sample group, Rothschild, and Miethe (1999) found the rate to be about two-thirds of the actual whistleblowers. This is stating that retaliation is so common, and it is the aftermath of whistleblowing that they have to deal with (Soeken and Soeken 1987).
At the same time, retaliation can also be a form of harassment which employees are being closely monitored, being humiliated, being assigned to unmanageable work and much more that can break them (Dasgupta & Kesharwani, 2010). All these situations can cause the whistleblower to be very stressful, as well as a financial needs, becoming emotional, many other health problems, also have a negative impact and many other issues (Rothschild & Miethe, 1999; Soeken & Soeken, 1987).
Therefore, we can see why many people choose not to blow the whistle. Not only the complication itself is troublesome, but the aftermath is even more fearful than the problem. Overall, whistleblower’s fear of retaliation can determine their judgment and intention for whistleblowing. The more fear they feel, the less they are favored to blow the whistle.
Ranks and Position Matters
Essentially, if the person that you are going to blow the whistle on is a powerful and high position executive member, it will make you think twice before you blow your whistle. The identity and status of the wrongdoer matters and this will make the call even tougher than it already was.
When you face a high-level member of an organization keep in mind that they may have enough money or power to suppress whistleblowing and to exact revenge. Most whistleblowers all they ever wanted was just the termination of the wrongdoing (Miethe, 1999; Near & Miceli, 1985). However, considering the wrongdoer has a high position in the company, power and money will play a big role in protecting him/her. The company will protect him/her as well, due to the reason that they do not want to lose to a court case and not to lose a high position member. Therefore, potential whistleblowers may consider that a high-status individual committed a wrongdoing it will not be as easily result in corrective action or termination of employment, and thus decide to remain silent (Miceli et al., 1991; Near & Miceli, 1990).
Overall, high-level members of wrongdoer make it even harder for whistleblowers to make their decision. It is less likely that whistleblowers will blow their whistles on them. Retaliation is more likely to occur with high-level members, that is why there will be more fear for the whistleblower to blow their whistle. Another reason was that high-level members can reply on their position which has both money and power to keep them safe. Which result in you a lower chance of successfully blowing the whistle. As we can see the higher position the wrongdoer is the less likely you will and be successful at blowing your whistle. The status of the wrongdoer can influence your decision to blow the whistle, as they increase the fear of retaliation and cloud your judgment and intention.
Tolerance on the Problem
In some sense, if the employee cannot accept or tolerance the wrongdoing then that leaves no choice but to blow the whistle. As I have mentioned before, company and high-level members can use power and money to overcome the problem. However, if the company is abusing it further on, that will increase the employees’ intention to blow the whistle.
Companies that dissent employees will either trigger their employees to leave or take action on what they have done. The most common action is to go on strikes or protests. If companies tolerate and encourage wrongdoing activities instead of punishing and suppressing it, it will push employees to their breaking point. Then employees will have more desire towards blowing the whistle.
If you decided to keep your silence or leave for good, then why would you think the next person won’t do the same for you? This will be a forever loop, never ending. That is why you should step up when you cannot stand it anymore, which is to blow the whistle.
Blowing the whistle
If you are still not afraid at this point, then you must have a strong intention for whistleblowing. Before you have decided to leave the company or even to blow the whistle you should consider more factors. Do not just attempt without a plan or an exit plan. Ask yourself questions like, do I have protection? Do I have enough evidence to put the person or the company down?
Do not do it alone – if you can find more people who also disagree with the wrongdoings, they may engage into putting the organization on broad as well. This will not only help you to lose some tensions and be out of the spotlight, but it can also help you with better consequences. You must know that once you blow the whistle not only that the public attention will be on the company or the wrongdoer, it will be on the whistleblower as well. Therefore, some people choose not to show themselves as the whistleblower. This can also be tricky because it is easy for people to find evidence and find out who is the whistleblower. Hence, you should think it over before you act.
Famous Examples of Whistleblowers
Here are some of the famous examples of whistleblowers, some examples are worth hailing as a hero, others can be a mistake to learn from.
Daniel Ellsberg
He is a former U.S. military analyst hired by the RAND corporation in 1971. He leaked one of the most top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government’s rationale during the Vietnam War. Immediately, these documents, known as the Pentagon Papers, were published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other American newspapers. (Gabriel Grand)
During an interview in 1998, Ellsberg mentioned, “The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn't stay in the government at that level.”
Surprisingly, not only that he did not get retaliated instead he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006. Ever since he had become an activist. Later, Ellsberg posted on his website that Edward Snowden was the one that inspired him to whistle blow.
Firstly, he risks his career to expose government’s intel. He could have been thrown into jail for that. However, he was very fortunate that the outcome will well. Not only that he did not get punish instead he got an award for it.
W. Mark Felt
W. Mark Felt as known as “Deep Throat”, he was an FBI agent who had also leak information. The information was about the Watergate scandal to Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Felt denied he was a whistleblower until thirty years later he revealed himself in a 2005 Vanity Fair article. (Gabriel Grand)
His actions were smart, he wanted to avoid being retaliated, therefore he kept denying himself as a whistleblower until thirty years later.
Bradley Manning
Here is another whistleblower that leaks government’s intel. Bradley Manning, he was deployed in Iraq as a U.S. Army. Meanwhile, Manning downloaded over 500,000 army reports and some classified combat videos. One of those videos was about a U.S. Apache helicopter opening fire on a group of civilians, which now has over 13 million views on YouTube. (Gabriel Grand)
Because of Manning’s leak in 2010, the U.S and the Middle East had a political disturbance. Manning is now on trial at Fort Meade, was charged with “aiding the enemy” and he is facing up to 20 or more years in prison.
As we can see this is a not so smart move, Manning, and Ellsberg both leaked government intel. However, Ellsberg got an award and Manning is facing imprisonment.
Julian Assange
Julian Assange is a founder and editor of WikiLeaks, and his organization has been responsible for more than 1.2 million leaks since 2006. However, he was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, because the political asylum was holding charges against him in Sweden. (Gabriel Grand)
We can call him the king of a whistleblower because he created a website that blew over 1.2 million leaks.
Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz, a skillful hacker and the founder of a social news site called Reddit. He was only 24 years old when he created the site, and he hacked into JSTOR – a journal database in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, he was arrested by the MIT campus police and faced many federal charges. Consequently, he Ended up with up to 1 million fines and 50 years in prison. Sadly, he hung himself in his apartment. (Gabriel Grand)
Unlike other aforementioned whistleblowers, he did not leak any information of movement intel. All he wanted to do was to read the scholar articles, which anyone can do if they have JSTOR subscription. This is the most interesting whistleblower after all.
Final Awareness
The purpose of this paper is to provide ideas about how to make a better decision for internal and external whistleblowing. In other words, should you or should you not do it? Is doing the right thing, always right? What are the consequences? Whistleblowing can be a very complex and scary proposition. With all the theories and models, we looked at you should start to have some ideas about how to decide rather whistle blow. The complexity lays on the consequences and the worthiness of doing it. Which many influences can change your judgment and intention of doing it.
Whistleblowing is a behavior can be trigger by a mix of elements – social, cultural, values, beliefs and the social norms. Therefore, understanding all these factors can help you make a better decision. Still, more scholars and researcher are finding more answers to this question. It is very hard to predict the outcome if you choose to blow the whistle. Just like some cases we looked at, some people end up with awards and some end up in jail. They are both whistleblowers and they did similar things.
As I have mentioned before, whistleblowers are typically viewed as traitors, after they blow the whistle his or her relationship with the wrongdoer and the company is over. Additionally, they may face retaliation or even punishments if they are not successful in blowing the whistle.
Even if you manage to be successful at blowing your whistle, do you feel ethical about yourself after bringing down a company and shutting down all other innocent employees? That leads to the question: is doing the right thing, always right?
Many of these factors are going to affect your judgment and intention about whistleblowing. By being aware of all the obstacles to whistleblowing, you will find it hard to decide and harder to act.
Despite the fact that wrongdoings exist in many places, the question is will you be a whistleblower or are you going to keep your silence? However, if you choose to keep your mouth shut there is still a risk. If other people discover it and know that you did not expose this information which you know of, you will still get in trouble. Undoubtedly, whistleblowing is for organizations so that helps prevent misconduct and frauds in general.
In the end, rather you choose to be or not to be, just keep in mind of all the choices and options you have. Pick the best alternative, and live with that choice.
P.S. Please comment below to let me know what do you think. :)
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