The Decision to Whistleblow: Is It Worth It?
The Pros and Cons of Whistleblowing for Whistleblowers
One of the main legacies of the outgoing Trump administration will be its evisceration of the inspectors general and other watchdog agencies tasked with overseeing the legal operations of the U.S. government. Indeed, whistleblowing resulted in the recent and extremely rare case of a presidential impeachment over a purportedly “perfect phone call” which in reality was determined to be violative of multiple U.S. laws. These events underscore the importance of whistleblowing to the ensuring that public and private sector organizations engage in legal and ethical conduct, but they also beg the question as to whether whistleblowing should begin internally within the company’s compliance department or should reports go directly to regulators.
The legal definition of whistleblowing does not provide any substantive guidance in this regard. For instance, according to the definition provided by Black’s Law Dictionary (1990), a whistleblower is “an employee who refuses to engage in and/or reports illegal or wrongful of his employer or fellow employees” (p. 1596), but it does not indicate where this report should be directed. The conventional wisdom holds that people in both the public and private sectors will...
For example, a potential whistleblower would be highly reluctant to report the illegal activities of the individual to whom the report should be directed, thereby making the need to report such activities directly to regulators the only perceived viable alternative (Alamsyah & Ismawan, 2019).
Likewise, the...…environment” (Whistleblowing, 2020, para. 3). Moreover, there have been several high-profile cases where whistleblowers have proven their importance in revealing wrongdoing on a massive level such as “industry-scale tax avoidance (LuxLeaks and Panama Papers), and money laundering (Danske Bank scandal)” (Whtstleblowing, 2020, para. 4).
Taken together, these outcomes indicate that while existing whistleblowing legislation has helped uncover serious wrongdoing in recent years, far more could have been accomplished if the current laws were strengthened to provide more protections for whistleblowers who fear retaliation for their lawful and laudable efforts to disclose wrongdoing on the part on fellow employees or higher-ups. As Transparency International concludes, “Unfortunately, reporting often comes at a high price: whistleblowers risk their career, their livelihood and sometimes their personal safety to expose wrongdoing that threatens the public interest” (Whistleblowing, 2020, para. 5).…
