Assess the moral complexities of acts of whistleblowing by a junior employee in a company.

The phenomena of whistleblowing is shown primarily through the fact that behind this term

there can be a lot of types of actions defined. These can be operations within inside or outside the

company, the anonymous or voluntary activities and finally these can be carried on by members of

different departments in the firm or sometimes even by former employees there. Moreover, the

process of disclosure of the wrong-doing can last for a very long time and that may lead to the

difficulties in recognizing the person responsible for the whistleblowing activities.

In the literature there can be found an interesting descriptions of whistleblowing as some

kind of “voice of conscious,” however; the classical definition of this term is a little less

philosophical. It states that the whistleblowing focuses on disclosure of the highly illegal, immoral

and forbidden activities by a person somehow related to a given workplace. People who are

informed about these sort of situations are the ones entitled to take appropriate steps leading to

protection of the employees and the workplace itself, but also to removal of the pathological

behaviors, which can result in improper functioning of that workplace. There can also occur a

completely spontaneous disclosure of the wrong-doings by someone, which may be referred to as

the natural whistleblowing.

It has been stated that the whistleblowing may be traced back to the Medieval Europe,

however; it mostly spread throughout the territories of the former British Empire. The complex

problem of whistleblowing is best developed in the countries with the legal system of common law

in use, where over the years the ethical delations and the informers behind them were protected by

the state. Furthermore, the great impact on the positive perception of whistleblowing could have a

completely different history, like for example in the United States and the Europe. In particular the

post-Soviet countries and the Nazi German occupation over the Europe during the Second World

War. Informants in the totalitarian nations were perceived in the very negative way, as traitors or

snitches. The border between the ethical and traitorous informers is very thin and it blurs for the

conscious of the public. Whistleblowing may be seen as a positive act in the totalitarian systems,

only when all the motifs behind the disclosure of sensitive information are discovered.

The genesis and first regulations of whistleblowing go back to the year 1863 and the

publication of The False Claims Act, the act which provides measures for fighting fraud against

the federal government. Originally the document was to ensure legal protection for informers who

disclosed fraud made against the Union Army during the Civil War. This act assured informants

with the protection against unfair dismissal from work. However, nowadays the most important

federal acts in the United States, which give protection to the informers are The Whistleblower

Protection Act, which was established in 1989 and protects the federal employees disclosing

improper and illegal governmental actions and also The Sarbanes-Oxley Act from 2002 that was

created to set new standards for all the American public company boards, management and public

accounting firms. There is also, the United Nations Convention against corruption brings attention

to the widely recognized problem of the corruption that was known for thousands of years now. It

gives the participating nations the complete freedom to the issues related with the protection of the

informants against the unfair treatment when they report wrong-doings.

Unfortunately, even in the countries with a long tradition of whistleblowing and protection

of the ethical informers not always have the disclosures lead to the honoring the person revealing

these wrong-doings. It can actually turn out to be a quite opposite result and the informants may be

forced to the isolation and eventually the elimination from the workplace. As a great example of

such situation may be the case of the American energy company Kerr-McGee Corporation from

1974. It involved the disclosure of irregularities, by a twenty-eight year old employee Karen

Silkwood, regarding the production of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste disposal in the

corporation. She was working at the position of the laboratory technician, dealing with the

preparation of granules of plutonium for the fuel rods. Silkwood, by herself, conducted the

examination of concentration of plutonium in her workplace and discovered that she worked in a

highly dangerous conditions. She disclosed very inconvenient information for the corporation,

including the use of inadequate security of the workplace, as well as, falsification of the degree of

concentration of radioactive plutonium there. Karen Silkwood died in a suspicious, tragic car

accident on November 13, 1974 on the date on which she was going to examine the concentration

of plutonium in her body, which was to be the main evidence in the case against the Kerr-McGee

Corporation.

On the other hand, bold actions of the whistleblower reacting in an appropriate time can

sometimes lead to the healing of the irregularities in the workplace. This situation may especially

occur in the large corporations with an established reputation and market position, rather than in

the small companies. Many smaller firms would prefer trying to solve their problems on the own,

within the company, rather than risk an exposure of any sensitive information to the outside.

Moreover, a scam in a smaller company is much easier to be repaired, partially due to the fact that

the organizational structure there, in particular the subordination of workers, is much simpler. An

example, which may allow to illustrate the figure of an ethical informant who is given all the

honors, may be the case of the Enron Corporation from 2001. Enron was an American energy

company with its headquarters in Houston, Texas. On the August 22, 2001 the vice president of

the firm Sherron Watkins submitted the short, six-page report on the irregularities in the

management and accounting of the company to its president Kenneth Lay. Unfortunately, the

president completely ignored this report, which was later found by the FBI on his desk. As it turned

out, the information provided by Watkins did not lead to the rescue of the company, but she herself

became a symbol of courage against the wrong-doings in the huge corporations. In this particular

case it is very difficult to clearly point the people who were blame of the crash of the company. In

the literature, there is an issue of assigning the responsibilities for the firm’s downfall to the

corporation as a whole or a single person standing highest in the organizational structure. There is

an emphasis, on the example of the case of the Enron Corporation, which shows that the

responsibility for the collapse of the company cannot be passed on to the entire corporation. The

chairman of the Enron completely underestimated his importance of the responsibility for the entire

company, which proves that it is the holders of the executive positions who were responsible of the

collapse of the firm, rather than the corporation as a whole.

While making the characteristics of the whistleblowing there has to be indicated extend of

the protection, which is provided for informers in the countries, such as: Great Britain, Australia,

South Africa or New Zealand, where there is a system of common law functioning. It is emphasized

that the whistleblowing regulations there are very similar, with minor differences concerning the

procedures for reporting irregularities, avoiding the use of disclosing information in the private

sector, as well as, diversification of policies regulating the protection of the informants.

Whistleblowers, even in the countries in which the whistleblowing is widely used, can be exposed

to the negative effects of their ethical actions because the disclosure of irregularities in the

workplace does not always have to mean the complete admiration for the informers. Unfortunately

it may also be associated with the rejection, public pressure or even condemning, when for example

the fault of the employer is not proven. The literature emphasizes that a lot of crimes and abuses

would have been disclosed if the informants were to be assured of the anonymity. Furthermore,

there is a much more difficult situation, when the ones who commit the wrong-doings are

executives in the charge of the company, with a lot of powerful connections in their hands.

It is obvious that the anonymous delations and unfounded accusations have to be fight off

in all of the circumstances. The thing which essentially distinguishes an alarmist from the informer

is the openness of their actions, in the sense that the whistleblowers do not send unsigned letters or

make anonymous phone calls to the press. Another issue is a question of the intentions of the

informants, in a sense that they are not always easy to detect. The literature indicates that roughly

only about twenty-five percent of public whistleblowing spectacles actually has some reference to

the higher good of the society and is undertaken in the name of the actual protection of the public

interest.

Ringing for the alarm in the case of noticing any wrong-doings is not always a moral

recommendation, however; it is always ethically acceptable but only under two conditions. Firstly,

all of the available possibilities if dealing with the problems within the company should be

exhausted and then, when the internal information system fails, it is legitimate to disclose the

irregularities to the outside. However, before the informant decides to go on with the process of

disclosure that person should balance the benefits obtained through revealing the sensitive

information and the potential losses their decision may cause, for example, the case of the

possibility of closing the only plant, which gives the employment to the local labor market.

Secondly, it is also worth noting that almost ninety percent of the whistleblowers suffered greatly

by losing their jobs and had serious problems with finding the next one, especially when the

disclosed case went to the forum of public debate. The ones who had managed to find a job were

evaluated according to much more strict criteria, given worse and higher amount of tasks, as well

as, excluded from the incentives and privileges from the organization. Frequently, the informers

are exposed to the public pressure and condemnation, since not everyone shares believe that in fact

the only way to repair matters was through the disclosure of the sensitive information. As literature

suggests, very often the consequences are very harmful to the informants, in a way that they are

forced to completely change their environments, which sometimes may result in the ruining of both

their private and public lives. Therefore, whistleblowing requires not only considerable amount of

the personal courage, but most of all balanced and considered actions because of the social, as well

as, personal consequences.

References:

M. Dodge, Whistleblowers, Encyclopedia of white-collar and corporate crime, L. M. Salinger

(red.), Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications 2005

J. C. Peterson, D. Farrell, Whistleblowing Ethical and Legal Issues in Expressing Dissent,

Dubuque–Iowa 1986

http://en.wikipedia.org/