...Whistleblowing and Ethical Motivations Marie Whitehead Soc. 120 Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility Prof: Christopher Messer March 31, 2014 The term whistleblower was first used in England and referred to the practice of British police officers blowing a whistle when a crime was being committed. This would then raise the alarm to other law enforcement officers to alert them that something was endangering the public (Princeton, n.d.). Today, however, the term shares a much broader meaning and is met with a variety of ethical motivations. When we hear the term, “whistleblower”, we know that someone has raised a concern regarding a possible wrongdoing in either a government agency or a private company, and they want to make others aware. The status of the whistleblower is often debated: as Rothschild and Miethe (1999) note, “some see whistleblowers as traitorous violators of organizational loyalty norms; other see whistleblowers as heroic defenders of values considered more important than company loyalty”. In addition, whistleblowing is a “new form of worker resistance” relevant to the “unending battle between labor and management to control the workplace” (Rothschild, et.al, 1999). But with the right motives in place, whistleblowing is good for an organization or agency because it protects that organization and agency from fraud, misconduct, and in most cases, failure. And, when affective communication is in place, the organization’s goals are kept in...
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...Ethics is the study of determining moral conductivity through critical reflection and analysis. Ethics is a process – it is about getting to a solution by questioning the norms; it is because we have different moral norms (from different moral authorities like societal, familial, cultural, religious, etc.) that we have so many different ethical theories1. Having varied ethics for us to follow allows us to exercise our rationality and put ethics into practice by questioning what we see around us1. This case exemplifies the moral dilemma of how democratic government corruption and monopoly is capable of endangering the public food supply. The ethical dilemma here is whether or not Dr. Chopra did the right thing by violating superior norms and coming out with the ugly truth – more colloquially known as whistle blowing. My convictions are that Dr. Chopra and his team acted ethically in coming out with the truth to help safeguard and protect the health of fellow Canadians. This will be demonstrated through the lens of four moral theories namely, Aristotle’s virtue ethics, deontology and Kantian ethics, utilitarian ethics. The advantages and disadvantages of each school of thought will be presented, followed by a discussion of Dr. Chopra’s whistle blowing according to each philosophy. Aristotle’s virtue ethics stems from the work that Socrates and Plato did; however, it differs in that it focuses on the moral character of each individual as opposed to the rules and principles...
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...Whistleblowing and ethics helplines in the 1Modes of Managing Morality Model Leon J van Vuuren Department of Human Resource Management University of Johannesburg Abstract The Modes of Managing Morality (MMM) model provides a heuristic device to assist business ethics scholars and practitioners to make sense of the differences that exist in the ways in which different organisations manage their ethics. Although it is difficult to demonstrate a clear distinction between ethics advice and whistleblowing, these activities are often fused in organisations and the seeking of ethics advice may of necessity sometimes spill over to a need for whistleblowing. The extent and ways organisations are tolerant to and utilise ethics communication in each of these modes were illustrated in this paper. In particular, the varied prominence of whistleblowing and ethics advice facilities in each of the reactive (some whistleblowing), compliance (ethics advice supplementary to whistleblowing) and integrity (whistleblowing supplementary to ethics advice) modes were indicated. The seamless integration of ethics talk and ethics advice in the TAO-mode makes whistleblowing superfluous in this mode. The necessity for leaders and managers to acquire an ethics management competence that would, among others, allow them to actively engage in and encourage ethics talk, was emphasised. Keywords: Ethics, ethics talk, hotlines, help lines, help desk, whistleblowing, Modes of Managing Morality Model, compliance...
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...Is whistle blowing appropriate? Whistle blowing legislation and organizational whistleblowing policies are intended to reduce the wrongdoing in organizations and protect the person that reports these wrongdoings. It is easier for employees to report wrongdoing when the issue of of a legal nature, as compared to wrongdoings that have an ethical issue to them. The legal wrongdoing is clearer and therefore the whistleblower has less confusion in the matter. Additionally, the whistleblower may feel that they are legally responsible if they do not report the behavior or incident (Tsahuridu & Vandekerckhove, 2008). Ethical wrongdoing is mercurial, leaving the issue open for translation, if it is not clearly stated as wrong in the company policies. Not all issues can be clearly covered even in a comprehensive policy. This leaves employees unclear about the situation and the appropriate action to take. Individuals in the workplace should feel safe reporting potential wrongdoing regardless of exact knowledge of its nature. Any circumstance that appears to be unethical to an individual should be reported and is appropriate. This will assist the individual in continuing to be a moral individual and support the development of an ethical organization (Alleyne, Hudaib, & Pike, 2013; Badaracco & Ellsworth, 1989). Does whistle blowing violate company loyalty? Whistleblowing does present itself as a conflict between the organization or organizational leader and...
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...J Bus Ethics (2015) 131:107–119 DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2271-z Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing: Mediating Roles of Psychological Safety and Personal Identification Sheng-min Liu • Jian-qiao Liao • Hongguo Wei Received: 26 July 2013 / Accepted: 22 June 2014 / Published online: 8 January 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The issues of organizational wrongdoing damage organizational performance and limit the development of organizations. Although organizational members may know the wrongdoing and have the opportunity to blow the whistle, they would keep silent because of the interpersonal risks. However, leaders can play an important role in shaping employee whistleblowing. This study focuses on discovering the mechanisms of how authentic leaders influence employee whistleblowing with a sample from China. Results demonstrate that authentic leadership is positively related to internal whistleblowing. Team psychological safety partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. Personal identification partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. The study contributes to the extant theory by filling the gap between leadership and whistleblowing. Keywords Internal whistleblowing Á Authentic leadership Á Psychological safety Á Personal identification S. Liu Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Jungong Road...
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... Since that time Whistleblowing, or the deliberate non-obligatory act of disclosure, which gets onto public record and is made by a person who has or had privileged access to data or information of an organization, about non-trivial illegality or other wrongdoing whether actual, suspected or anticipated which implicates and is under control of that organization, to an external entity having potential to rectify the wrongdoing.1 Both federal and state statutes and regulations have been created to protect these individuals from various forms of retaliation. Even without a statute, numerous decisions encourage and protect whistleblowing on grounds of public policy. While many of us can see the criminal and political ramifications of whistleblowing there is still one area that can often be seen as a more personal one…that of the ethical debate. As stated in Lars Lindblom’s article Dissolving the Moral Dilemma of Whistleblowing, “The ethical debate on whistleblowing concerns centrally the conflict between the right to political free speech and the duty of loyalty to the organization where one works.”2 The political philosophy of John Rawls that can be applied to this dilemma, show that the requirement of loyalty, in the sense that is needed to create the moral dilemma of whistleblowing, is inconsistent with that theory. In this sense, there is no moral dilemma of whistleblowing. This position has been labeled extreme in that it says that whistleblowing is always morally...
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...Whistleblowing: Necessary Evil or Good Thing Maureen Haley University of North Carolina – Asheville April 16, 2014 This paper was prepared for Management 484-001, taught by Professor Donald D. Lisnerski Whistleblowing: Necessary Evil or Good Thing Is whistleblowing a necessary evil or good thing? Can whistleblowing be avoided? Can the whistleblower be protected? “A whistleblower is an employee who discovers corporate misconduct and chooses to bring it to the attention of others.”(Ghillyer, 2014) Whistleblowers can be viewed as providing a praiseworthy act or be severely labeled as informers who have breached the loyalty of their co-workers and company. Whistleblowing can be a service to the community and public. Whistleblowing can be ethical or unethical, and the whistleblower discovering corporate misconduct has the options to be an internal or an external whistleblower. Whistleblowing can save people’s lives. Dr. Jeffrey Wigand made the decision to go public with information that his employer Brown & Williamson (B&W) was manipulating the nicotine content, suppressed efforts to develop safer cigarettes, and lied about the addictive properties of nicotine. According to Sissela Bok, in the book Taking Sides: Clashing views in Business Ethics and Society, “not only is loyalty violated in whistleblowing, hierarchy as well is often opposed, since the whistleblower is not only a colleague but a subordinate. Though aware of the risks inherent in such disobedience...
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...a free essay on "Whistleblowing" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. Whistleblowing is a highly controversial and widely discussed topic in today’s society due to many high profile cases including the circumstances surrounding the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion and what was documented in the movie The Insider about the tobacco industry. Ethically, the decision for someone to whistleblow is a tremendous one. The person needs to weigh many factors and take many things into consideration before making that step. This paper will use the movie The Insider, Ethical Theory and Business and material collected from the internet to (1) discuss definitions and conditions of whistleblowing; what motivates whistleblowers; ethical and other considerations including risks and typical results of whistleblowing cases. Definitions and conditions of whistleblowing “A whistleblower is an individual that believes that his or her organization is engaged in or willingly permits unethical, unlawful or otherwise reprehensible activities. Whistleblowers bring attention to the objectionable activity and attempt to effect change. Whistleblowers generally report these actions internally and may ultimately resort to reporting these activities to external authorities or interested parties.” (http:cosign.scu. edu505set01003WhistleblowerProfile.htm) In the essay “Whistleblowing and Professional Responsibility” published in Ethical Theory and Business...
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...BAC4664 – Internal AuditingSection B01DTrimester 3, 2014/2015 | Internal Auditor and Whistleblowing Policies | Group Assignment | | Prepared by:Gabriella Rena Vanessa Darmadji 1121116458Nur Aida Binti Mohd Jasmin 1121118345 | | | Multimedia University Cyberjaya 2015 | INTRODUCTION Fraud negatively impacts organizations in many ways including financial, reputation, psychological and social implications. According to various surveys, monetary losses from fraud are significant. Thus, the organization has to establish an effective fraud management program that also covers the organization response to the whistleblower in the company. It is clear that corporate have major responsibility in their response of complaints regarding accounting, internal accounting control or audit matters where they have to establish audit procedure for the receipt, retention and treatment of complaints. Moreover, the organization has to build appropriate structure of line of reporting for the internal audit to support the effective fraud management program. The report discuss in deep on the Sarbanes Oxley Act 2002 in relation with bursa listing requirement. Furthermore, the whistleblowing also become the main issues on this report. The thorough discussion about what whistleblowing is and the key characteristics to support good whistleblower hotline also is conferred. REPORT Summary and compare the requirements of section 301.4 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act 2002 and compare those...
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......p1 Exceptions to Employment-At-Will………..…………………………………….……p2 Case Scenario Evaluations…………………………………………………….……....p3 Recommendations CEO……………………………………………………………….p5 References /Academic Resources……………………………..………………………p7 EMPLOYMENT -AT-WILL DOCTRINE In this paper, I will summarize the employment-at-will doctrine in the United States. I will evaluate the following situations: • Summarize the employment-at-will doctrine and evaluate each of the eight (8) scenarios described by determining: • Whether you can legally fire the employee; include an assessment of any pertinent exceptions to the employment-at-will doctrine. • What action you should take to limit liability and impact on operations; specify which ethical theory best supports your decision. • Take a position on whether or not you would recommend to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) that the company adopt a whistleblower policy. Support the position. • Justify at least three (3) fundamental items that should be included in a whistleblower policy. Provide a rationale for your selection of each of the three (3) recommended items. THE AT-WILL PRESUMPTION Employment relationships are presumed to be “at-will” in all U.S. states except Montana. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries where employment is predominantly at-will. Most countries throughout the world allow employers to dismiss employees only for cause. Some reasons given for our retention of the at-will presumption include...
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...imperative to include international educational perspectives in the nursing profession (Robinson, Sportsman, Eschiti, Bradshaw and Bol, (2006). Caldwell, Lu & Harding (2010) argue that the quality of nursing care necessitates nurses to reflect on nursing ethics in relation to their individual principled way of life. Cadwell, Lu & Harding (2010) paper explores these ideas. Summary: The fundamental nature of professional development implies personal development (Glen, 2005). ‘Encompassing multiple moral paradigms: a challenge for nursing educators’, is an in-depth analysis of nursing ethical dilemmas; the efforts that are undertaken to implement professional development through reflection, self-monitoring and self-control; and the challenges for nurse educators to integrate the syllabus into real-life clinical practice situations. Caldwell, Lu & Harding (2010) study analyses nursing ethics, Chinese ethical philosophies, and Judeo/Christian traditions as they endeavour to demonstrate the real-life issues of morally conflicting situations in nursing practice within these groups and the possible legal consequences. Relevant to topic yes/no? This paper clearly outlines ethico-legal nursing dilemmas in nursing practice, and the difficulties faced implementing them when striving to achieve competence in nursing. The acquirement of nursing competence and its relationship to different views of nursing is demonstrated by Cadwell, Lu & Harding (2010) through the case study of a Chinese student...
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...1. There are four parts to Amgen’s Code of Ethics: employees should resolve ethical dilemmas by considering the legality of proposed actions, compliance with company policies, Amgen’s values, and an analysis of ethical issues including rights and respect. There were several allegations Shawn O’Brien made against the company that contradict the code of ethics. O’Brien alleged the company violated federal law by under reporting complaints and problems patients were having with Amgen’s drugs. Since this was issue of legality, O’Brien sued because Amgen was not reporting to the Food and Drug Administration the patient’s complaints. O’Brien’s retaliation contradicted the code of ethics because his supervisor took him off the case and ? 2. Whistleblowing is when a person makes allegations to the public or someone in authority about illegal or fraudulent activities. In this case the whistleblower was Shawn O’Brien. Internal whistleblowing is when misconduct is reported within the company. For example, if an employee tells another employee or a superior about misconduct, that is internal. External whistleblowing is the opposite and occurs when someone reports the misconduct to a party that is apart of the company. For example, if employee tells an auditor, government agency, or the police about misconduct, that is external whistleblowing. I don’t think O’Brien too enough steps to report his concerns. He only reported the misconduct internally, but could have easily reported...
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...| | | | | | | Workplace Ethics: Whistleblowing What is whistleblowing? Whistle blowing is an attempt by a member or former member of an organisation to disclose wrongdoing in or by an organisation. There are 4 different kinds of whistleblowing: Governmental, internal, external as well as personal whistleblowing. Why is whistleblowing important? A 2004 study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reported that organizations without proper mechanisms for reporting fraud and unethical behaviour suffered fraud-related losses that were almost twice as high as those with such mechanisms. It also stated that about 40% of frauds are initially detected through whistleblowing, compared to 24% for internal audits, 21% by accident, 18% through internal controls, and 11% through internal audits. Thus, it is important to have a proper whistle blowing mechanism present in all organisations. Ethical Issue 1: Protection of whistle-blowers Protection of whistle-blowers is needed to encourage people to whistle-blow especially when: 1. Efforts to inform employers or government agencies have proven to be futile and he/she needs to go to the media. Example: HSBC Everett Stern case Stern was an Anti-Money Laundering officer at HSBC. In _____, he found many discrepancies and informed his supervisors and even the government agencies about it. However, there was no action taken. Stern then had to resort going to various media outlets to whistle...
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...working culture with someone working for the same firm halfway around the world. 2. Corporate culture shapes, and is shaped, by the people who are members of the organization. TRUE While culture shapes the people who are members of the organization, it is also shaped by the people who comprise it. 3. Differing individual perception of culture makes it easier to define the specific culture within an organization. FALSE Defining the specific culture within an organization is not an easy task since it is partially based on each participant's perception of the culture. 4. In situations where an organization lacks strong leadership for ethical decision making despite the clarity of law, the business culture is likely to be the determining factor in the decision. FALSE In situations where the law provides an incomplete answer for ethical decision making, the business culture is likely to be the determining factor in the decision. 5. Organizations with similar missions, rules, and legal regulations, can have significantly different cultures. TRUE According to the examples of FEMA and the Coast Guard provided in the text, it is fair to say that FEMA and the Coast Guard are two very similar organizations with similar missions, rules, and legal regulations; but they have significantly different cultures. 6. Organizations that have a traditional...
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...“Whistleblowing and Professional Responsibility” by Sissela Bok Whistleblowers "sound an alarm from within the very organization in which they work, aiming to spotlight neglect or abuses that threaten the public interest” , according to Sissela Bok. In my opinion, “whistleblowing” can save an organization from operating unethical activities, however, it can be prejudicial to future employment of the whistleblower. I believe that under certain circumstances, whistle blowing is necessary for the company’s welfare, but when the whistleblower’s own career is at risk, is it worth it? Furthermore, in most circumstances when a person's career is not at risk, I believe that there is still no ethical obligation to blow the whistle. Simply put, per Sissela’s point of view, people have a moral obligation to prevent serious harm to others if they can do it with little cost to themselves. In most cases, the issue is to have the assurance that there is little cost to the denouncer, which is not necessarily true. Personally, there would be very few situations where I would blow the whistle because of the uncertainty of maintaining my employment. Summarizing, whistle blowing is seldom done successfully, however, when an employee is brave enough to speak out against unethical practices of the business in which they work, often, they are regarded as heroes and can save a company from losing everything and prevent harm for many of its customers and other employees. Whistle blowing...
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