Business ethics assigment 3 pages

Running head: ENCOURAGING WHISTLEBLOWING 1

Encouraging Whistleblowing

Kawtar Ben Hadouch

PHIL305 – Business Ethics

Instructor: Monica E. Hofmann

Southern States University

ENCOURAGING WHISTLEBLOWING 2

Encouraging Whistleblowing

Introduction

Whistleblowing is a new ethical strategy for discouraging unethical behavior in business

organizations. Managers and employees who engage in fraudulent or unethical activities are

reported to relevant authorities dealing in business ethics. However, the debate about ways of

encouraging or discouraging whistleblowing is on-going. Notably, it is employees who blow

whistles whenever their employers or organizations are engaged in unethical acts. In this case,

employees have to balance between loyalty to the organization and fairness for the greater good.

Empirical studies reveal that emphasizing the concept of fairness in the code of ethics, mission

statements, advertisement campaigns and honor codes encourages employees to blow whistles

whenever there is ethical misbehavior in the organization or group.

The Value of Loyalty and Fairness in Whistleblowing

Loyal employees or members are expected to be submissive to the authorities in the

organization and support the organization’s activities regardless of its impact to the society.

Whereas such characterizations symbolizes loyalty, it is unthinking devotion and blind

obedience. In this case, the employee is discouraged from whistleblowing. However, when

rational loyalty is exercised, then the employee remains loyal to the organization as long as the

organization conducts itself in a manner acceptable to him. Furthermore, in rational loyalty, the

employee does not feel threatened by the employer when he or she blows the whistle (Varelius,

2009). Importantly, whistleblowing is not a manifestation of disloyalty but rather

professionalism because the long term effect of such actions is beneficial to the organization.

Commented [MH1]: External citation needed to support your position.

Commented [MH2]: Make sure to review sentence structure for grammatical consistency.

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The motivation for loyal employees not blowing the whistle when unethical behavior

occurs in the organization is lack of self confidence, courage, or the incentive to speak (Niewler,

2014). In order for fraud to occur, there is usually a motivation behind it; therefore, rationally

loyal customers may fail to blow the whistle due to lack of incentives. Incentives in this case

entail the necessary structures for reporting the unethical behavior and lack of organizational

culture that encourage whistleblowing and ensure that whistleblowers are

confortablecomfortable.

Encouraging Whistleblowing

Potential whistleblowers in organizations can be encouraged by emphasizing fairness and

justice and framing whistleblowing as a characteristic of greater loyalty. Blind loyalty, makes

employees adhere to decision without questioning whether they are ethical or not. However,

when whistleblowing is valued as the greatest loyalty, employees will be encouraged to blow

whistles. In addition, the organization should establish codes of ethics that emphasize ethical

behavior andshunning evil. Through such ways, employees who blow whistles are protected by

the code of ethics and will not feel disloyal.

The Effect of Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing has both positive and negative effects to the whistleblower depending on

the organization and existing structures in place. There are instances where whistleblowers were

killed; a case in point is the murder of a Russian treasury whistleblower called Alexander

Perepilichny (Wold, 2015). In some cases, whistleblowers are regarded as heroes and are

honored for their efforts. For instance, Linda Tripp blew the whistle about Clinton-Lewinsky

scandal when she was an employee of the Pentagon and the White House. She was praised for

Commented [MH3]: Use of the Oxford comma in lists is recommended within APA citation. Make sure to use a comma before the last ‘and’ in a list.

Commented [MH4]: I assume you meant employees

Commented [MH5]: Citation needed.

ENCOURAGING WHISTLEBLOWING 4

her effort and later was compensated by the Federal government for losing her job (Hicks, 2014).

In another case, Edward Snowden blew the whistle about the CIA’s tapping of communications.

He was honored in 2013 by being awarded a Whistleblower Prize by coalition of organizations

including Transparency International Germany.

CONCLUSION

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References

O’Toole, J. (2013). The whistle-blower’s quandary: Fairness or loyalty. Retrieved from

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/business-ethics/resources/the-whistle-blowers-

quandary-fairness-or-loyalty/

Hicks, J (2014). 5 of the Most Famous Federal Whistleblowers. The Washington Post, 31st July,

2014. Web. Accessed on 27/4/2019

Niewler, A (2014). Let’s Take a Look at the Whistleblower-Your Loyal Employer. Accessed on

27/4/2019.

Varelius, J (2009). Is Whistle-blowing Compatible with Employee Loyalty? Journal of Business

Ethics, 85(2), pp. 263-275. Doi: 10.1007/s10551-008-9769-1

Wold, N (2015). 10 Suspicious Deaths of Whistle-Blowers. Web. Accessed on 27/4/2019