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Challenges that whistle blowers face
Whistleblowing ethics
Whistleblowing ethics
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Each day an individual will make a decision that will affect their life in some way. Should I wear the green shirt or the yellow shirt? Should I order a shake or lemonade? Should I wash the car today or wait until tomorrow? These simple decisions often happen without serious thought. Why? Because these decisions are not life changing ones. But what happens when the decision is not so easy to make, when it’s life changing. Sometimes a person’s conscious greatly affects one’s decision making, especially when the topic of whistle blowing arises. In this paper, I will discuss and analyze whistle-blowing, where it occurs, the effects of whistle-blowing, the consequences of whistle-blowing, and finally I close my paper with a conclusion. Understood correctly whistle-blowing is defined as an informant who exposes wrongdoing within an organization. (1) Whistle-blowing is not about informing in the negative but raises concern about misconduct within an organization. More so, it can also be …show more content…
It could be true that a company is harming a company. Duska argued that organizations cannot rely on loyalty. People do not have obligations of loyalty to companies. Prima facie states that everything is based on the first impression until proven different. (1) Therefore, the loyalty companies are not always viewed as objects of loyalty. Whistleblowing doesn’t need moral justification. Duska compares the idea of loyalty to a company setting barriers and negative attitudes toward the whistleblower. Whistle blowing can cause conflicts with obligations to the employer, and not to reveal confidential information. I think his argument supports the people that whistle blow and their actions are mislabeled, therefore, they are being loyal to their community. Moral justification of right or wrong is hindered by the small amount of loyalty to the
However, it may not be the best solution to be used first when dealing with unethical corporate practices. From more of a Utilitarian approach one should seek to do the greatest good. An approach that gives the company a chance to change its unethical behavior internally would follow this idea. Having the ability to change practices internally before outside intervention can have many positive effects. The company is able to make the changes, reestablish its integrity, maintain business, and retain employees. The whistleblowing option brings in outside forces that could lead to repercussions for the company which may include restitution or even being closed down. If the business is closed it effects more than just the corporate entity, all of the employees are also negatively impacted by this as well when they would lose their jobs. Sometimes however, when the company is unwilling to change its practices and do business in a more ethical manner people are left with little choice but to report to outside sources what is occurring within the business. Many see whistleblowing as law-breaking when employees are contractually obligated to
Such cases may force people to keep quiet instead, due to fear. Shame / embarrassment = = = =
First I will be telling you about the pressure of being a “whistleblower”. In Fahrenheit 451 the pressure of being a “whistleblower” is so real, everyone is told to rat out everyone who has a book in their household, if they find out they have a book in the home it is burned to the ground. This is related to our society because we are pressured to do what is right, and part of my belief system is to do what is right and to point out what is wrong. For example if someone were to gossip behind their back I would try to stand up and tell them it is wrong and tell the person what the others said
Ethical decision-making is the responsibility of everyone, regardless of position or level within an organization. Interestingly, the importance of stressing employee awareness, improving decisions, and coming to an ethical resolution are the greatest benefits to most companies in today’s world (Weber, 2015).
Silence or Omission: Not coming forward or withholding important information can be highly unethical if it leads to harm or damages
Harris, George C. "Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts." Pepperdine Law Review (2000-2001): 28. Online.
For this essay, I will evaluate the Employee Loyalty Argument derived from ‘Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty’ by Ronald Duska. I will argue that this Employee Loyalty Argument is deductively valid but is not deductively sound because premise 2 is false. I will justify my claims that premise 2 is false by arguing about how it is rational for employees to expect their companies to recognize and fulfill a duty of loyalty to their employees if the employees also have a duty of loyalty to the companies that employ them.
The company has a culture of unquestioning when something wrong surfaced in the company. Take for example the Lockheed documents incident, where the 25000 documents were seen in the company for nearly 3 years before someone voiced his concerns regarding it. This unhealthy culture not only allows unethical practices to prevail, it also hinders company’s growth.
In an ideal medical society, no dilemma should arise on whistleblowing associated with poor medical practice or illegal behaviours. However these dilemmas arise when these whistle blowers take privileged information to the public in order to address their personal concerns or conscience. It can however be said that they are often left with little or no choice. Lipley (2001) discusses a case which occurred in the UK where a nurse wrote to the media reportedly that the elderly inpatients at her organisation did not receive adequate care and that this was jeopardising their lives. The appeals tribunal ruled that her decision was right and was both reasonable and an acceptable way to raise such issues ...
Whistle blowing is a controversial topic in the professional industry. Whistle blowing is the act of speaking out against a fellow colleague or even a friend that has done something non-ethical or illegal in the workplace. A whistleblower raises concerns about the wrongdoing inside of the workplace. Employees hesitate to become a whistleblower because of the idea of becoming a snitch on fellow employees and having a bad rep around the office. This concern was lowered in 1989 with a law called the Whistleblower Protection Act that protects federal government employees in the United States from retaliatory action for voluntarily disclosing information about dishonest or illegal activities occurring at a government organization (whistleblowers.gov).
A person with more education may be more able to recognize and assess varying kinds of real or implied wrongdoing, as well as perceive the appropriate lines of accountability for correcting such wrongdoing (Sims).” He also found “research in this area is inconclusive, although investigations by Graham (1986) suggest a potential link between education and whistleblowing (Sims).”
The three things required for whistle blowing to take place are- wrong-doer (who commits the wrong-doing), whistle-blower (who observes and reports the wrong-doing) and recipient (who receives the report of wrong-doing) (Near & Miceli, 1996). Often whistle-blowers face retaliation for their actions which, according to a research by Near & Miceli (1996), correlates to ‘situational characteristics’ and occurs more often when the whistle-blower uses external rather than internal sources of reporting. There is a large literature dedicated wholly to Nancy Olivieri. The several hundred pages of reports were written-“Naimark Report” commissioned by the HSC, “Thompson report” commissioned by CAUT and “Report of inquiry committee” of CPSO (Schafer, 2004).
One day while doing his job, a physician used a used swab that was possibly infected with HIV on another patient. When looked at by certain people, the doctor did the correct thing by telling his patient that he roused a swab on him/her. However, the chances of this patient getting HIV was substantially low, and he should have waited for the patient to develop symptoms, which would have been rare, before telling the truth. As stated by Michael Greenberg, “he might have done better by keeping his mouth shut.” If the doctor did lie, he could have lied to protect himself, the quality of life of the patient, and his ability to help others with their lives. If he had not told the patient that he used the swab on him/her, he/she would not have had to live in fear of getting HIV. Because of this decision of truth telling, the doctor lost his job, money, confidence, and also affected someone’s quality of life.
With the emergence of unethical practices found in international corporations, whistleblowing has been more and more common. A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information that is deemed illegal, immoral, or dishonest. In SNC-Lavalin, the whistleblower was justified. In this case, the senior executives were paying bribes and taking money from mega projects won under the Gadhafi regime (Wikipedia, 2015, n.p). There are several issues in this case.
Whistle blowing is an attempt of an employee or former employee of a company to reveal what he or she believes to be a wrongdoing in or by a company or organization. Whistle blowing tries to make others aware of practices that are considered illegal or immoral. If the wrongdoing is reported to someone in the company it is said to be internal. Internal whistle blowing tends to do less damage to the company. There is also external whistle blowing. This is where the wrongdoing is reported to the media and brought to the attention of the public. This type of whistle blowing tends to affect the company in a negative way because of bad publicity. It is said that whistle blowing is personal if the wrongdoing affects the whistle blower alone (like sexual harassment), and said to be impersonal if the wrongdoing affects other people. Many people whistle blow for two main reasons: morality and revenge.