PHL paper PHYLLIS

Organisational Whistleblowing

Policies: Making Employees

Responsible or Liable? Eva E. Tsahuridu

Wim Vandekerckhove

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the possible impact of

the recent legal developments on organizational whistle-

blowing on the autonomy and responsibility of whistle-

blowers. In the past thirty years numerous pieces of

legislation have been passed to offer protection to whis-

tleblowers from retaliation for disclosing organisational

wrongdoing. An area that remains uncertain in relation to

whistleblowing and its related policies in organisations, is

whether these policies actually increase the individuali-

sation of work, allowing employees to behave in accor-

dance with their conscience and in line with societal

expectations or whether they are another management

tool to control employees and protect organisations from

them. The assumptions of whistleblower protection with

regard to moral autonomy are examined in order to

clarify the purpose of whistleblower protection at work.

The two extreme positions in the discourse of whistle-

blowing are that whistleblowing legislation and policies

either aim to enable individual responsibility and moral

autonomy at work, or they aim to protect organisations

by allowing them to control employees and make them

liable for ethics at work.

KEY WORDS: whistleblowing, moral autonomy,

ethical distance, moral agency

Introduction

The increased focus on ethics and ethical behaviour

in organisations has led to greater concerns about

whistleblowers and their protection. In the early

1970s, Ralph Nader was the most prominent rep-

resentative of a growing movement which aimed to

offer legal protection to whistleblowers. Nader et al.

(1972, p. vii) define whistleblowing as ‘‘an act of a

man or woman who, believing that the public

interest overrides the interest of the organisation he

serves, blows the whistle that the organisation is

involved in corrupt, illegal, fraudulent or harmful

activity’’. Nader’s activism pointed to a conflict

between the ethos of the ‘organisation man’ and

growing public criticism of organisations’ separation

from society’s ethics. In this sense, the call for

whistleblower protection must be seen as an expo-

nent of the call for more accountability of organi-

sations to society.

Research on whistleblowing covers its psycho-

logical and social dimensions (e.g. Miceli and Near,

1984, 1985, 1991), legal aspects (e.g. Miceli and

Near, 1992; Miceli et al., 1999), cultural aspects of

the phenomena (e.g. Park et al., 2005; Rashid and

Ho, 2003; Tavakoli et al., 2003), conceptual delin-

eations (e.g. Elliston, 1982; Jubb, 1999) organisa-

tional responses to legislation (e.g. Hassink et al.,

forthcoming; Near and Dworkin, 1998) and analysis

of the different moral arguments used for defending

whistleblowing protection (e.g. Vandekerckhove,

2006). There is, however, no consensus whether

whistleblowing policies in organisations actually in-

crease the individualisation of work, allowing

employees to behave in accordance with their con-

science and in line with societal expectations (e.g.

Berry, 2004), or whether they are another manage-

ment tool to control employees and protect organi-

sations from them (e.g. Alford, 2001; Martin, 2003).

The increased protection of whistleblowers that

legislation offers in the U.S., has been challenged by

an increase in court cases where judges are asked to

enforce secrecy agreements against whistleblowers

(Dworkin and Callahan, 1998). Such agreements,

Dworkin and Callahan argue, offer employers extra

protection. An important aspect of this protection

offered to employers is that employees are required to

Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 82:107–118 � Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9565-3

first report wrongdoing internally. In Europe, where

discussions about whistleblowing legislation have

recently commenced in most parliaments and cor-

porations have started to draw up and implement

organisational whistleblowing policies in order to

comply with the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, diverse stances

have been adopted regarding the obligatory or op-

tional status of disclosing organisational wrongdoing.

Commenting on the U.S. context, Tippett (2006)

notes that state and federal law requires some pro-

fessions to report suspected child abuse and that New

Jersey and Florida require attorneys to reveal a client’s

intent to commit a future crime, but that overall

statutes that force employees to blow the whistle are

exceedingly rare. With regard to Europe, Hassink

et al. (2007) comment that the majority of the

European organisational whistleblowing policies

adopted a tone that was ‘‘at least moderately

authoritative’’, with codes speaking of ‘‘a require-

ment or duty to report violations’’, and employees

who ‘must’, ‘should’ or ‘are expected to’ report

them. More importantly, Hassink et al. found that in

30 percent of the policies reviewed, ‘‘it was made

clear that failing to report a violation (remaining si-

lent about a breach or concealing information about

one) is a violation in itself.’’ In France, the ‘Com-

mission Nationale de L’Informatique et des Libertés’

(CNIL), in its recommendation dated 10 November

2005, on the implementation of whistleblowing

policies, cites a letter from the French Minister for

Labour and Social Affairs stating that ‘‘the use of

whistleblowing systems must not be compulsory, but

be merely encouraged,’’ and that a compulsory

reporting requirement would be out of proportion

with its objective (CNIL, 2005). Similarly, the Bel-

gian privacy commission in 2005 issued a recom-

mendation stating that whistleblowing schemes may

not impose mandatory reporting on employees, and

therefore, use of the reporting scheme must be op-

tional (Privacy Commission, 2006). Meanwhile, the

whistleblowing policy of the European Commission,

implemented after the Cresson crisis, maintains a

mandatory disclosure procedure (Art 22a of the Staff

Regulations of Officials of the European Commu-

nities, see OLAF, 2005).

Recent developments at work such as the changes

in the employment relationship, the psychological

contract to short term, no long-term commitment

and life long employment (Sennett, 1998) and the

extinction of the organisation man (Werhane, 1999),

who would override other concerns for the benefit

of the organisation, may also affect whistleblowing,

its purpose and process. This matter is part of a

bigger web of questions that relate to ethical

behaviour at work, raised in the organisational

context. They include the issues of moral agency,

personhood of persons and organisations, autonomy

and responsibility (Tsahuridu and McKenna, 2000).

This article outlines the developments in whis-

tleblowing legislation and organisational whistle-

blowing policies. It examines the assumptions of

whistleblower protection with regard to moral

autonomy, in order to clarify the purpose of whis-

tleblower protection on people at work. The clari-

fication of the purpose of whistleblowing legislation

and related organisational policies is important be-

cause it will inform the appropriate means to achieve

the protection of whistleblowers. The two extreme

positions in the discourse on whistleblowing appear

to be that whistleblowing legislation and organisa-

tional policies either aim to enable individual

responsibility and moral autonomy at work, or

protect organisations by allowing them to control

employees and make them liable for ethics at work.

It is, however, possible for such policies to enable

both moral autonomy and responsibility of

employees and the protection of organisations in

varying degrees. We believe that insight into the

assumptions about autonomy and individuation at

work underlying the call for whistleblower protec-

tion is beneficial for successfully developing and

implementing whistleblower legislation and organi-

sational whistleblowing policies.

This article briefly outlines the developments in

the research, legislation and scope of whistleblowing

policies. It examines how moral agency and auton-

omy are conceptually linked, and develops the rea-

soning for the notion of moral responsibility in

organisations, by employing the notion of ‘ethical

distance’ (Bauman, 1993; Mellema, 2003). It then

develops the impact of whistleblowing policies on

ethical distance and moral autonomy. Finally, the

article develops the thesis that, while whistleblowing

policies can find their justification as an organisa-

tional mechanism enhancing the moral autonomy of

people in an organisational context, the effect of

implementing these policies is susceptible to turning

responsibility into liability for people at work.

108 Eva E. Tsahuridu and Wim Vandekerckhove

Whistleblowing and whistleblowing legislation

An act constitutes whistleblowing if it has the fol-

lowing characteristics: First of all, it must involve an

intentional disclosure of information to which the

whistleblower has privileged access. In general,

employees have such a privileged access. They know

what is going on at work, and specific jobs entail

handling specific information about what an orga-

nisation is doing. Not only permanent, core

employees but also temporary or contract staff and

some self-employed workers have privileged access

to information. Second, the disclosed information

must be about a perceived malpractice or wrong-

doing in the organisation, or under the responsibility

of the organisation. Third, the disclosure’s aim is to

rectify that malpractice or wrongdoing.

While some authors restrict the term whistle-

blowing to concerns that are raised outside the

organisation (Chiasson et al., 1995; Jubb, 1999),

many others assert that the term can be used for any

disclosure about wrongdoing in an organisation that

does not follow the normal hierarchical lines

(Callahan et al., 2002; Kaptein, 2002; Van-

dekerckhove and Commers, 2004; Vinten, 1994).

Miceli and Near (1992) have argued that empirically,

there is a conceptual distinction to be made between

internal and external disclosure because internal

disclosure commonly precedes external disclosure.

However, both internal and external disclosures of

organisational wrongdoing are consequences of a

concern being voiced by an insider aimed at recti-

fying the wrongdoing.

The assertion that whistleblowers are ‘rats’ or

‘sneaks’ has been refuted by empirical research on

the psychological and sociological dimensions of

whistleblowing. Research (see e.g. Chiu, 2003;

Dozier and Miceli, 1985; Miceli and Near, 1984,

1989, 1991) shows that employees who have blown

the whistle are loyal to the organisational goals and

would rather have the wrongdoing corrected by

raising the issue inside their organisation than cause a

scandal by blowing the whistle externally. More

important factors leading to acts of whistleblowing

were found to be the perceived organisational dis-

position towards people raising concerns internally,

and the perceived seriousness of the malpractice

(Callahan and Dworkin, 1994; Miceli and Near,

1985; Near and Micelli, 1987).

Miceli and Near (1992) argue that organisational

retaliation against (internal) whistleblowers encour-

ages further (external) whistleblowing, while Math-

ews (1987) and Keenan (1990) claim that having

internal whistleblowing procedures encourages

internal disclosures but not external whistleblowing.

Further, Sims and Keenan (1998) show that formal

organisational policies that support external whis-

tleblowing are not a significant predictor of its

occurrence. Informal elements, however, such as

supervisory support to do so, are more likely to lead

to external whistleblowing. Vandekerckhove (2006)

suggests that the research undertaken on whistle-

blowing has had an impact on policy making, and a

salient trend, since the mid 1990s, is that whistle-

blowing legislation makes protection of individuals

conditional on raising the concern inside the orga-

nisation prior to external whistleblowing. Hence,

the current usage of the term whistleblowing also

covers internal disclosures.

In addition to this disagreement, there is also the

unresolved issue of whether blowing the whistle is

an obligation or not. Jubb (1999), in order to dis-

tinguish between whistleblowing and informing,

asserts that a disclosure has to be non-obligatory for

it to qualify as an act of whistleblowing. Current

usage of the term whistleblowing, however, refers to

both obligatory and non-obligatory disclosure. This

apparent confusion stems from the assumptions

regarding the level of individual autonomy and

individuation, and the shifts that occur with regard

to these assumptions while implementing an or-

ganisational whistleblowing policy, which will be

developed in this article.

In the past 30 years, numerous pieces of legislation

have been passed in many countries, offering whis-

tleblowers protection from retaliation for disclosing

organisational wrongdoing. In 1978, the US Civil

Service Reform Act (amended in 1989 to the

Whistleblower Protection Act) was the first statutory

legislation explicitly offering protection for whistle-

blowers. Michigan, in 1981, was the first state to offer

protection to whistleblowers in the U.S. Today, in

addition to the statutory laws at federal level, every

state in the U.S. has legislation protecting whistle-

blowers, and many federal laws have parts that address

whistleblowing. In the early 1990s, some Australian

states passed whistleblowing legislation. These were

South Australia in 1993, and the Australian Capital

Organisational Whistleblowing Policies 109

Territory, Queensland and New South Wales in

1994. Around the turn of the century, similar legis-

lation was enacted in the U.K. in 1998, in New

Zealand and South Africa in 2000, and in the

remaining Australian States of Victoria in 2001,

Tasmania in 2002 and Western Australia in 2003.

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act passed by US Congress in

2002 is primarily concerned with restoring investor

confidence, and also contains some whistleblower

provisions. Similarly, the Corporate Law Economic

Reform Program (Audit Reform and Corporate

Disclosure) Act (CLERP9 Act), passed in 2004 in

Australia, includes provisions protecting whistle-

blowers in the Australian private sector. In Japan, a

law was passed at the end of 2004, offering whistle-

blower protection that covers the private and public

sectors. Finally, in 2005, the Flemish Parliament in

Belgium enacted whistleblower protection. Mean-

while, proposals for legislation to protect whistle-

blowers, have been tabled in Ireland, Canada, India

and Netherlands, while in many other countries,

discussion and lobbying are ongoing in order to

protect whistleblowers in organisations.

Moral agency: autonomy or determinism

In order to examine the responsibilities of people at

work, and the moral status of whistleblowing poli-

cies, it is important to look at moral agency. Moral

agency is important for the determination of moral

behaviour and attribution of blame and praise. The

central concept of moral agency is responsibility,

which is closely related to moral cognition, moti-

vation, and autonomy, and virtue, moral weakness,

self-esteem, shame and guilt (Wren, 1997). Moral

agency enables the moral evaluation of the agent’s

behaviour. An agent in ethics is any entity that acts

and is subject to ethical rules, is a rational being, and

is not an agent for anyone or anything else (De

George, 1992). The point that moral agents are not

acting for anyone else makes them an end in

themselves, worthy of respect and never to be used

as a means by others, De George comments. This

point is also important because it allows moral

responsibility and accountability to be attributed to

individuals. Moral agency is accepted as a charac-

teristic of human beings, which enables persons to

live their own life and be responsible for their

actions. The same agreement does not exist, how-

ever, in accepting the possibility of moral autonomy

of people, especially at work, despite the fact that

moral autonomy leads to moral agency. People at

work are held responsible for their moral behaviour,

even if they are not or considered not to be morally

autonomous, since organisations usually prescribe

the means (systems/processes) and ends (goals/

objectives) of behaviour.

Moral philosophy has a long tradition from Plato

to Kant recognising that to be a moral agent is to be

autonomous or self-directed (Rachels, 1997). Dod-

son (1997) assigns the fundamental attribute of moral

agency on autonomy, the self-legislation or the

capacity of a will to give laws to itself. The moral

agent must then be bound by the self-legislated laws.

Autonomy appears more problematic, however,

when the moral agent is examined not in isolation

but in society, since society provides the moral code

instead of the individual. Dodson (1997), however,

explains that the social contract allows people to live

in societies, and yet remain autonomous. The idea of

the social contract is contingent on the fact that

persons come in contact with each other, and the

social contract determines the laws and conditions

that ought to govern this interaction. Persons are

moral agents, and they legislate the laws that govern

social life, so each one is obeying the laws one has

legislated for oneself. These laws are thus universal

because they command universal agreement and

apply universally. The Kantian reconciliation of

authority with autonomy, is through the social

contract. Each person is an autonomous agent, and

his autonomy, provided it is consistent with that of

all other agents, must be respected. This argument

can be applied to organisations as social systems or

communities. People in organisations can be morally

autonomous if they are able to legislate the rules that

govern organisational life, the life at work. This can

be accomplished by allowing people to participate in

the legislation of the rules and policies they are called

to obey. Interestingly, in 2005, the German

Employment Court in Wuppertal ruled that some

internal whistleblowing procedures were illegiti-

mate, precisely because the employee representatives

have had no input in designing and implementing

the procedures (Hewson, 2005).

The opposing position is that persons are not

autonomous in the Kantian sense, that is, they do

110 Eva E. Tsahuridu and Wim Vandekerckhove

not develop their own morality, rather they are

determined or formed by society. This view per-

ceives ethical choices in human behaviour as a

consequence of value judgements. Due to the per-

vasive causation there is no free will or voluntarism,

rather determinism (Gordon, 1988). Determinism,

rather than agency, is the assumption of social

learning theory (Waterman, 1992), which holds that

a person’s moral formation and involves the acqui-

sition of rules or norms of behaviour from the per-

son’s external environment (Crittenden, 1990).

Accepting determinism, however, does not free

people from responsibility. Shriver (cited in Walton,

1997) views humans as largely responsible for their

acts, even if they are not fully responsible for their

character, because training, parental care, economic

circumstances etc. affect character. The adherents of

this view hold individuals responsible for their ac-

tions (Gordon, 1988) because the survival of any

human collective depends on holding its members

responsible for their individual actions. Responsi-

bility, for Gordon (1988, p. 37), is ethically judging

actions and providing penalties if necessary, and it is

important because the understanding of responsi-

bility provides a psychological feeling that becomes a

causal factor of future behaviour. ‘‘The individual’s

feeling of responsibility or accountability is an

indispensable link in the causal chain. It is due to the

fact that an individual cannot be aware of the causes

and connections of his or her decisions and behav-

iours, he or she acts ‘as if he or she had free will’’’.

People in organisations that blow the whistle are

moral agents, and are responsible for their behaviour.

Miceli and Near’s (1984) research has shown that

what whistleblowers hope and believe their speaking

out will achieve, is the correction of what they

perceive as an organisational wrongdoing. This re-

search also found that not everyone who perceives a

wrongdoing, acts upon that perception. In fact, only

42% stated in the research that they were ready to

blow the whistle. In a more recent poll by Time/

CNN (Time, 2002), taken at the end of 2002, when

Cooper, Rowley and Watkins became the new

whistleblower heroes for raising their concerns about

WorldCom, FBI and Enron respectively, 73% of the

participants reported that they were prepared to

blow the whistle. It must be noted that this high

percentage indicates intention and not readiness to

blow the whistle. Nevertheless, it represents a large

majority of the population that has such intentions.

More importantly, as an illustration of Shriver’s

feeling of responsibility as a causal factor of future

behaviour, is that Miceli and Near (1984, pp. 698–

699) have shown that those who observe wrong-

doing, yet would not speak up about it, say that they

would not do so because of the ‘retaliatory climate’

in their organisation. In contrast, those who say they

would speak up, were confident that they ‘‘would

not experience managerial retaliation if they blew

the whistle’’.

Whether it be free will/voluntarism or deter-

minism, whistleblowing requires an individual to be

a moral agent who is responsible, able and willing

not to be fully determined by the organisational

means and ends, and having a belief that speaking up

will cause the correction of an organisational

wrongdoing. Moreover, whistleblowing regulations

attempt to protect individuals, when they behave

responsibly towards society. They endeavour to

protect people from the organisations which they are

members of, when these organisations behave

against the good of society. The acknowledgement

of the need for such protection, however, implies

that moral agency, autonomy and responsibility are

problematic in organisations, or at the very least, that

they do not come naturally and are not welcomed

when they arrive.

Responsibility in organisations

Moving to the organisation and the organisational

context, Elliston (1982) notes that responsibility has

two dimensions. The descriptive dimension refers to

a causal relationship between one’s actions and an

outcome, whereas the normative dimension identi-

fies who should do what about it. Kaler (2002)

distinguishes similar dimensions of responsibility.

The causal dimension – Elliston’s descriptive

dimension – exists when people can be said to have

brought something about. The second dimension –

Elliston’s normative dimension – Kaler calls

responsibility in a sense of ‘duties owed’. In this

sense, people ‘have responsibilities’, they have cer-

tain duties or obligations.

In the organisational setting, the responsibilisation

of employees encompasses both the descriptive and

normative dimensions. Duties are ascribed to people,

Organisational Whistleblowing Policies 111

and people are held accountable. People are ‘given’

responsibilities that create duties, and for those duties

they are both rewarded and ‘held’ responsible. It is

‘holding’ someone responsible that leads to

accountability. Employees are asked to ‘give ac-

count’ for what they have done to fulfil the

responsibilities given to them, and the duties laid

upon them. It needs to be noted, however, that

generally the process of accountability in organisa-

tions refers to the responsibilities attributed to

members by the organisation. To the extent that

these responsibilities are imposed in the absence of

or with limited consultation with the employees,

these responsibilities will lead to employees who are

heteronomous, that is, they follow externally im-

posed laws, and not autonomous moral agents. It is

this conflict between the organisationally imposed

duties and the self-authored obligations, that leads to

whistleblowing at work, where people believe that

their duties extend beyond the organisation to

society or that the organisationally imposed duties,

whether implicit or explicit, are not acceptable to

people. The increase in whistleblowing may, in fact,

be a consequence of the increased realisation of what

an organisation is for and for whom. An apparent

shift is evident where organisations are less accepted

as ends in themselves, and are increasingly perceived

as entities that exist to serve society. This realisation

is fuelled by the demise of the organisation man, and

the increased moralisation of business, which aims to

overcome the separation of the economic from the

rest of social activity (McKenna and Tsahuridu,

2001).

Understanding personal and organisational

responsibility and behaviour at work is more con-

voluted than personal responsibility and behaviour.

The organisational context may influence employ-

ees, because it can shape what is perceived as rational

by them (Vaughan, 1998). This phenomenon is

attributed by Vaughan to the specialisation and

division of labour, which may render the sum of

legitimate acts illegitimate, and also promote the

ignorance of the individual decision maker of the

total act, performed by the indistinguishable con-

tributions of numerous other people. Secrecy is also

built into the structure of organisations, continues

Vaughan, because, as organisations grow, actions in

one part of the organisation are not visible in others,

which lead to the segregation of knowledge, tasks

and goals. Knowledge becomes specialised, which

further inhibits knowing and promotes secrecy, and

the development of language associated with dif-

ferent tasks can conceal rather than reveal knowl-

edge, even between sections of the same

organisation. Vaughan, in her analysis of the Chal-

lenger accident, concludes that it was a mistake and

not the result of misconduct. The reasons for this

conclusion are that employees did not violate any

laws or rules in their pursuit of organisational goals,

and there was no intentional wrongdoing. Mellema

(2003), more recently, explains that the investiga-

tions into recent scandals involving firms such as

Enron, Arthur Andersen, and WorldCom have

shown the difficulties of identifying particular indi-

viduals to blame – responsibility in the causal sense

for particular events. Mellema argues that within the

context of highly complex situations – situations

brought about by organisational practices tend to be

highly complex – the notion of ‘ethical distance’

might shed some light on how collective the ‘col-

lective responsibility’ for organisational outcomes is.

Mellema’s characterisation of ethical distance in

terms of moral responsibility is important because it

steers away from two extremes on the question of

who bears responsibility for organisational outcomes.

One extreme is ‘organisational scapegoating’, refer-

ring to groups or corporations ‘‘pointing the finger

of blame at individuals as a means of focusing the

responsibility with an individual (scapegoat), even

though some responsibility accurately resides with

the group’’ (Wilson, 1993, cited in Bailey, 1997).

The opposite extreme is ‘individual scapetribing’,

referring to individuals ‘‘pointing the finger of blame

at organisations (or groups, institutions and systems)

as means of excusing, or ascribing responsibility for

their personally enacted behaviours’’ (Bailey, 1997,

p. 47).

‘Ethical distance’ refers to the distance between a

moral agent and a state of affairs which has occurred.

It is created by bureaucracy and rule following

(Bauman, 1989) and limits the responsibility that

creates the ethical proximity of another person. In

the case of organisational crime or scandal, people

belonging to the organisation might try to distance

themselves from that crime or scandalous outcome

by arguing that their involvement in the events

leading up to the crime or outcome was significantly

less extensive than the that of others. Equally, others

112 Eva E. Tsahuridu and Wim Vandekerckhove

may endeavour to reduce ethical distance by attrib-

uting blame.

Mellema (2003) argues that there is an inverse

correlation between ethical distance and degrees of

responsibility – in Elliston’s (1982) descriptive sense.

In general, the more involvement someone has in

bringing about an outcome, the less the distance

between that someone and the outcome, and hence

the more responsible that person has. One of Mell-

ema’s criteria is whether there are defined institu-

tional roles to play that require specific types of

behaviour. If there are such roles, and if behaviour

according to those roles (heteronomous behaviour)

leads to a scandalous outcome, then the ethical dis-

tance is to be considered greater than when such

behaviour is pursued free of such institutional con-

straints (autonomous behaviour).

Hence, causal responsibility is to be considered

greater when behaviour is autonomous rather then

when it is heteronomous. Organisations, however,

in order to retain their freedom to pursue their

interests, attempt to limit individual autonomy.

They attempt to protect themselves from internal

‘‘conscience heroes’’ (Smith and Carroll 1984, p.

98), and limit individual variability. Individuality is

not coercively removed from people, rather, is so-

cialised out of them. It is converted to commitment

to the organisation, and makes people freely adopt

the organisational imperative and substitute personal

values with organisational values (Scott and Hart,

1980). This occurs whether they are compatible

with societal values or not. Such commitment also

provides security to the members of the organisa-

tion, because it enables them to surrender the or-

ganisations’ determination of values to top

management (Smith and Carroll, 1984). A certain

degree of compliance is something that organisations

require, and people in organisations readily and

willing provide.

The causes for the abdication of individual moral

autonomy at work have been recognized as both a

result of the characteristics of people and work or-

ganisations. Barnard (1938) identified the zone of

indifference, the range within which people at work

are willing to incontestably accept authority. He,

however, characterises this phenomenon irrespon-

sible, because people in organisations do not effect

their morality in their conduct. They are thus, not

morally autonomous persons and do not behave as

moral agents. The nature of the employment rela-

tionship is such that it grants a certain degree of

control to employers over the behaviour of their

employees, resulting in the relinquishment of some

of the employees’ autonomy (Radin and Werhane,

1996). Jackall (1988) attributes the abdication of

personal responsibility and autonomy to the imper-

atives of the work place. The paradox in organisa-

tions is that individuals relinquish varying degrees of

autonomy in them, but remain responsible for their

morality, despite the absence of autonomy to effect

their morality. Responsibility remains with the

individual because, even under determinism, moral

agency cannot be relinquished nor reassigned, but

rationality, cognition, judgement and behaviour can

be affected.

Whistleblowing policies

Organisational whistleblowing policies aim to

identify channels and procedures so as to raise con-

cern about organisational practices. They also aim to

identify how these practices are brought about by

the discretionary powers of the organisation’s

members. Whistleblowing policies and their aims

reiterate the notion of ethical distance between

people in organisations and organisational outcomes,

in two contradictory ways. They increase ethical

distance from an outcome, since people who know

about unethical and/or illegal organisational prac-

tices distance themselves by raising concern. They

also decrease ethical distance by increasing collective

responsibility, and making knowing equivalent to

doing. The second possibility makes it necessary to

look at whistleblowing policies in terms of the

likelihood of a moral slippery slope.

First, a whistleblowing policy allows individuals

to increase their ethical distance from an outcome.

Individuals having knowledge of practices leading to

a criminal or scandalous organisational outcome, and

not having the power to alter or prevent those

practices, can distance themselves from the practices

and the outcome by raising concern. In this sense,

whistleblowing policies can allow individuals to shed

off causal responsibility by taking up normative

responsibility and act out a ‘duty owed’. To the

extent that the responsibilisation of employees is a

call upon the moral agency of individuals, the

Organisational Whistleblowing Policies 113

assumption of autonomy of the individual exists, in

Kantian terms. However, as Lovell (2002) has

shown, the autonomy of an individual is highly

vulnerable to contextual factors. These factors are

consequences of exercising autonomy; consequences

in terms of employment, remuneration, colleague

support, and personal reputation. Lovell shows that

the experienced dissonance between what respon-

sibilisation suggests and allows, results in a diminu-

tion of autonomy, and hence ‘‘moral agency

becomes the victim of autonomy’s frailty’’ (Lovell,

2002, p. 63). Increased decision-making powers

suggest heightened levels of autonomy, but both the

gained power and the suggested autonomy will be

constrained if they are not supported by an institu-

tional medium such as a whistleblowing policy.

These constrains are at least partly self-imposed by

the individual, but Lovell sees this as a reason to

regard the suppression of moral agency more wor-

rying than overt repression, because the suppression

is invisible – ‘‘it is not really happening, but it is’’

(Lovell, 2002, p. 65). Thus, though the assumption

is that moral autonomy of individuals in organisa-

tions is weak, whistleblowing policies can structur-

ally strengthen the exercise of that autonomy and

lead to more responsible employees. Such was the

argument of the Nolan Committee in the U.K.

(Nolan 1996), which had to make recommendations

to improve ‘Standards in Public Life’. In its second

report, the Nolan Committee expressed itself in fa-

vour of whistleblower policies that ‘‘enable concerns

to be raised confidentially inside and, if necessary,

outside the organisation’’ (Nolan, 1996, p. 22) based

on the argument that ‘‘placing staff in a position

where they feel driven to approach the media to

ventilate concerns, is unsatisfactory for both the staff

member and the organisation’’ (Nolan, 1996, p. 22).

Second, it is in offering the possibility to raise

concern about certain practices that one is given the

power, albeit indirectly, to alter or stop these prac-

tices, and in this sense whistleblowing policies de-

crease the possible ethical distance in organisations.

The existence of known and accessible whistle-

blowing procedures makes everyone, who has

knowledge of practices leading to a certain outcome

part of the collective, responsible for bringing about

the outcome. It thereby expands ‘collective

responsibility’ to include witnesses and bystanders.

Knowing leads to responsibility just as doing does.

Hence, being able to blow the whistle under a

whistleblowing policy makes it impossible to dis-

tance oneself from an outcome based on the claim

that one knew what was happening, but did not

have the power to alter or prevent it. It also makes it

impossible to distance oneself by claiming that rais-

ing concern was not part of the defined institutional

role. Those who knew but did not raise concern are

at least, to some degree, responsible for the outcome.

In this sense, whistleblowing policies can be an

expansion of normative responsibilities – duties

owed – on which causal responsibility can be

attributed. Thus, where the assumption is that moral

autonomy of individuals in organisations is strong,

whistleblowing policies can structurally turn auton-

omy into an imposed obligation, which may in fact

disable autonomy. Such was the effect of a change in

the UK Health and Safety at Work Regulations in

2003, as the implementation of a European Direc-

tive. In October 2003, the Health and Safety at

Work Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/3242) were

amended by the Management and Safety at Work

and Fire Precautions (Workplace) (Amendment)

Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/2457), which were in-

tended as an implementation of the EC Framework

Directive on Health and Safety (89/391/EEC). The

Directive made it necessary to adopt legislation, so

that employers would have civil liability for failing to

comply with health and safety regulations. The

legislation did that but imposed a limited liability on

employers, whereas employees held an unlimited

liability. The only way to avoid this liability was to

signal compliance failures. Not knowing is not a

defence. The regulation implied that in cases, where

it could be argued that it is reasonable that an em-

ployee would have known, then that employee has

civil liability. Public Concern at Work, a London

based charity, termed this flaw the ‘Speak Up or Pay

Up Regulation’ and issued a report outlining the

consequences in terms of extra administration and

insurance costs such liability would bring about

(PCAW, 2004). Meanwhile, the regulation got

amended, and the civil liability of employees has

been seriously restricted.

The two positions are summarised in Table I.

However, the distinction between whistleblowing as

a right or a way to increase ethical distance, and

whistleblowing as a duty – decreasing the ethical

distance, is gradual. What if there is a whistleblowing

114 Eva E. Tsahuridu and Wim Vandekerckhove

policy in force, but an employee who knows about a

malpractice does not disclose it? This implies that the

employee had the opportunity to increase the ethical

distance, but chose not to do so. Isn’t the next step

to hold that employee accountable for not disclosing?

In other words, is not taking an ethical distance to a

particular practice any different from approving the

practice, hence complicity? Is there, then, still a

difference with not fulfilling the duty of blowing the

whistle?

Whistleblowing as a means to create ethical dis-

tance is not at the same time whistleblowing as a

duty, but the latter seems possible to evolve from the

former. This possibility raises the moral slippery

slope concern. Whistleblowing policies are morally

acceptable, as they enable employees to voice con-

cern about organisational wrongdoing and offer

protection to employees. If however, they are

introduced through the process described above they

are likely to lead to a responsibility to disclose or-

ganisational wrongdoing. Is the responsibilisation of

employees for organisational wrongdoing moral? Is

it acceptable to hold employees responsible for or-

ganisational wrongdoings?

In terms of autonomy in organisations, assuming

that individual autonomy is weak, organisations

introduce a whistleblowing policy to strengthen

autonomy. Once the policy is implemented, we can

no longer assume that autonomy is weak, rather,

since a whistleblowing policy has been imple-

mented, it must now assume that autonomy is

strong. This assumption however, justifies holding

employees accountable for not blowing the whistle,

and hence turn autonomy into a liability, an

instrument that exists to increase employee respon-

sibility for what they have or have not done in

relation to what they know or ought to know. In

this sense a whistleblowing policy becomes another

tool in the hands of organisations to control em-

ployee roles and behaviour. The policies can also

offer protection to the organisation by shifting

responsibility of organisational behaviour to indi-

vidual members.

Institutionalising the individual

Whistleblowing legislation and organisational whis-

tleblowing policies are important tools to improve

responsible behaviour by organisations. They can

also lead to more responsible behaviour by people in

organisations. However, as we argued in the previ-

ous section, implementing organisational mecha-

nisms ensuring the right to blow the whistle

implicitly impose the duty to blow the whistle.

Hence, instead of enabling moral autonomy and

responsible behaviour, organisational whistleblowing

policies can be used for the institutionalisation of the

individual rather than his individualisation.

The institutionalisation of the individual repre-

sents the obliteration of the conflict between the

interests of the organisation and society, precisely in

his ability to blow the whistle. An employee who

fails to blow the whistle, is one who fails to safeguard

the integration of organisation and society, the

integration of the economic and social concerns.

They turn the employee into a centaur – part hu-

man, part organisational being (Ahrne, 1994;

McKenna, 2001), or a ‘character’ in MacIntyre’s

sense of the term. MacIntyre (1984) regards a char-

acter not as merely a role or function, but as the

moral representative of a culture, because of the way

moral ideas are embodied through the character in

the social world. There might still be a distance

between the role and the individual. Doubt, com-

promise or cynicism can mediate between the

individual and the role – giving individuality a

chance. This is different with regard to a ‘character’

because its requirements are imposed from outside,

from the way others regard it and use it to under-

TABLE I

Whistleblowing: right versus duty

Status of whistleblowing Ethical distance Autonomy assumption Consequence

Right Increased Autonomy is weak Responsible employees

Duty Decreased Autonomy is strong Liable employees

Organisational Whistleblowing Policies 115

stand and evaluate themselves. ‘‘The character morally

legitimates a mode of social existence’’ (MacIntyre,

1984, p. 29). When whistleblowing policies insti-

tutionalise the individual, rather than being merely

an institutional safeguard for the individuation of the

employee, they turn the employee into a ‘character’.

The character of the employee – an empowered

employee, for whom whistleblowing procedures and

protection are available – represents the obliteration

of the dissensus between organisation and society,

precisely in his/her ability to blow the whistle. The

individual is institutionalised into the character of

the employee, meaning that every employee must

understand and evaluate himself/herself in terms of

that character. Hence, one who fails to blow the

whistle, is an employee who fails to safeguard the

integration of organisation and society.

Some professions consist of people with occupa-

tions that are considered as central institutions of our

society, such as doctors (crucial when it comes to our

health), lawyers (crucial when it comes to our rights

and the rule of law) or auditors (crucial when it

comes to our investments and pensions). These

professions can be seen as ‘characters’ in MacIntyre’s

sense. Doctors, lawyers and auditors indeed safeguard

the integration of their occupation with the interests

of society. But this is different from an employer

imposing a duty to blow the whistle on its employees.

Organisational policies that present whistleblowing as

a duty – cf. the majority of European company

policies in the research of Hassink et al. (2007) –

thereby shift the organisation’s duty to abide by the

law, the organisation’s requirement to be legitimate,

and other corporate social responsibilities, to its

employees. In this sense, organisational whistle-

blowing policies and whistleblowing legislation bear

the threat of becoming a management tool for em-

ployee control, and thus limiting the possibility of

people bringing their whole-selves to work, by

increasing other-imposed responsibility and further

limiting autonomy.

Conclusion

Whistleblowing policies are increasingly imple-

mented in organisations, and whistleblowing legis-

lation is introduced in more legal constituencies.

These policies aim to enable people in organisations,

to raise concern about organisational wrongdoing so

that such wrongdoing is rectified and protect whis-

tleblowers when they raise such concerns. Generally,

whistleblowing policies and legislation are recent

phenomena, and their implications for people at

work and organisation are under review without

agreement and certainty.

In this article we developed the likely conse-

quences of whistleblowing policies. It seems pos-

sible that organisational whistleblowing policies can

be justified as an organisational mechanism

enhancing the moral autonomy of persons in the

organisational context. They are thus presented as

institutional safeguards for the individuation of the

employee. In this sense, they provide another tool

for the destruction of the organisation man or

woman, and for the introduction of the whole

person at work. They enable people at work to be

moral agents, who are responsible for their

behaviour, and have the autonomy to behave as

their conscience dictates them. However, imple-

menting these policies may also turn responsibility

into liability and increase the control of people by

organisations, holding them responsible for what

they do or fail to do, thus further institutionalising

the organisation man or woman. This possibility

makes whistleblowing policies a management tool

to make people at work liable for what they do or

fail to do. This second possibility also shifts

responsibility of organisational behaviour to

employees, making them responsible not only for

reporting organisational wrongdoing but for or-

ganisational wrongdoing.

Whistleblowing policies, if they are to enable

moral autonomy at work, that is, if they are going

to enable people to live in accordance with their

values, to author their lives, need to be developed

by the people who are called to abide by them.

They also need to be examined in terms of likely

consequences, and effect on people’s and organi-

sations’ moral behaviour and responsibility.

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Eva E. Tsahuridu

Business School,

University of Greenwich,

Park Row, London, SE10 9LS, UK

E-mail: [email protected]

Wim Vandekerckhove

Center for Ethics & Value Inquiry,

Ghent University,

Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, B-9000, Belgium

E-mail: [email protected]

118 Eva E. Tsahuridu and Wim Vandekerckhove