Ethical Issues relating to Whistle Blowing...

• Whistle blowing can be defined as the disclosure by organizational members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers,to persons or organizations that may be able to affect action.

• While the reporting of sensitive issues may be part of the individual's role within the organization (e.g., internal auditors, inspectors), when the individual finds it necessary to reveal ethically sensitive issues to organizational members outside the normal chain of command, it is also considered whistle-blowing through internal channels.

• Whistle blowing is done by the individuals who go out of the organizational hierarchy and make information available to public or other external authorities to get a positive action.

• If there is a misdeed or illegal activity in the organization, associated with the perception of an individual employee that either the management can prevent a malpractice/unethical/illegal transaction etc. within an organization, whistle-blowing takes place for initiation of appropriate and corrective actions by the top management. This occurs because some people believe that t some action should be taken against the illegal / unethical activity that would cause enormous public loss/harm.

• There should sufficient concrete evidence with the whistle-blower, where appropriate legal action could be taken up for resolving the issue of any illegal/unethical activity.

TWO MOST IMPORTANT POINTS IN WHISTLE-BLOWING:
• the availability of the information.
• The sensitive information would be available only to a selected few or understanding the issues in the information is possible only by particular individuals.
• Employees at large would generally feel that the information or the illegal activity is part of the organizational functioning and tend to avoid making bold moves to correct them.
• It can be generalized to a certain extent that whistle blowers have a high level of moral responsibility, guts and concern for the organization and society at large.


• In the industrial/organizational context, some of the activities which the employees feel are misdemeanors will be exposed in the form of rumors in the organization. The rumors about misconduct/illegal practices/ unethical transactions of business processes also help to elicit organizational response.
• In the whole process the various stakeholders play a major role. The managers, other employees and the society at large can be seen as major stake holders. The whistle blowers are often treated as traitors by the organization. People within the organization tend to treat them as outcasts and blame the whistle blowers for putting the organization in a difficult situation.
• Study of some of the cases show that whistle blowers often leave the organization or face employer or coworker retaliation. This creates an unsafe and difficult situation for whistle blowers and employees often take the stance of avoiding getting into trouble.
• Organizations that have strong ethical background can do things to support whistle blowers and take actions at the right point of time. The most important managerial action would be keeping the issue from getting out of control, avoiding criticism from public and preventing image loss. Responding at the right time to issues and encouraging people to bring out problems concerning the functioning and governance of the organization would be critical here.
• HR department can set up policies and systems that would track down the internal voices of the employees. For HR, setting up communication channels and other mechanisms that not only allow but also promote healthy, and an employee friendly culture.
• Employing accountability/ethics officers and providing special telephone numbers and e-mail accounts encourage employees to bring out sensitive issues by maintaining anonymity. Setting up a clear value system in the organization which is implied in recruitment, training, performance appraisal etc would help in developing and nurturing an open, honest culture.

Managing whistle blowing :
• Whistle blowers should confirm whether the practice followed in the organization will cause harm to an individual or the general public if uncorrected, make sure that the facts in hand are reliable and not mere rumors, be fairly certain that by bringing the matter before an outside group/ the general public/the media so that the problem can be corrected and harm avoided.
• Law can be a big tool for the whistle blowers in some cases. Support from the law can help prevent sufferings of whistle blowers, e.g. in the US, Whistle-blowers Protect Act of 1989 protects federal employees who make public interest disclosures.

• The guts and high moral responsibility of whistle blowers shows that whistle blowers can play a vital role in fighting loose ethics and slack corporate governance. Many of the times whistle blowers have to undergo insult and injury in form of job loss, ridiculing, retaliation and boycott. An important aspect here would be the tolerance of the society towards corruption and unfair practices. In the Indian context it is of high importance that organizations takes a serious view of instilling high sense of ethics and compliance of laws that are generally formulated to protect the employees who play the role of whistle blowers against corruption both in the private and public sector.