Whistleblowing Regulations and Procedures Whistleblowing, a Term

Whistleblowing Regulations and Procedures

Whistleblowing, a term coined by Ralph Nadar in the 1970s, refers to when a person reports illicit activity concerning a business or federal agency to a governing body. Whistleblower protection has been the topic of a number of laws and initiatives over the past 20 years. Most significantly, section 1107 of the Sorbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) protects against whistleblowers. Not only are employers required to investigate a complaint, but they are prohibited from retaliating against a complaint. The SOX initiative was enacted in response to the Enron and WorldCom debacles, ostensibly advocating for employees to report misconduct. Prior to the Sorbanes-Oxley act, other measures were taken to protect whistleblowers, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 (which protected whistleblowers employed by the government.)

Although the Sorbanes-Oxley Act was (on the surface) created to protect whistleblowers, the implementation of the measure has been heavily criticized. While it is true that whistleblowers cannot be fired, suspended, or harassed by their employers, whistleblowers face substantial bureaucracy and therefore employers often have little motivation to adhere to regulations. Moreover, SOX stipulates that whistleblower protections are dependent on the state, which adds to the confusion. With the passing of SOX, whistleblowers are required to have legal counsel, which often means that they must go up against highly skilled lawyers in a court of law. Moreover, whistleblowers who report misconduct to the media are not protected by SOX (Dworkin, 2007). Accordingly, it has been argued that "SOX does little to change the hazardous path whistleblowers must tread" (Ramirez, 2007, 193).

Ultimately, instances of whistleblowing are damaging to a company's name and reputation, and so organizations typically enforce procedures designed to prevent whistleblowing before it occurs. This typically involves a high level of transparency between the organization and the employees, encouraging workers to report instances of wrongdoing, discrimination, etc. However, while companies often assent to protecting their employees, whistleblowing prevention procedures are also believed to represent a tool designed to constrain employees. As Tsahuridu and Vandekerckhove (2008) explain:

"There is, however, no consensus whether whistleblowing policies in organizations actually increase the individualization of work, allowing employees to behave in accordance with their conscience…or whether they are another management tool to control employees and protect organizations from them."

It is easy to see why an organization might be moved to enact strict whistleblowing policies, since it is much easier to prevent whistleblowing from occurring before it develops. However, policing workers too stringently may result in employee dissatisfaction, producing the unintended consequence of lower quality of work.