TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE
Cover Page

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Content

Conclusion

Reference/Citation

Appendix

PAGE NO.

INTRODUCTION
The origin of the term whistle-blower comes from the English police
officers. When a crime has occurred, they blow their whistle to alert the other
policemen. The phrase was coined by United States civic activist Ralph Nader
to avoid the negative connotations found in other words such as informers and
snitches. A whistle-blower is a person who exposes or leaks misconduct,
alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organisation. The alleged
misconduct may be classified in many ways. For example, a violation of the
rule of law, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud,
health and safety violations as well as corruption. Many people see the whistleblower as a snitch, or a lowlife who betrays a sacred trust largely for personal
gain. Some choose to disagree. They claim that whistle-blowing is when an
employee reports suspected wrongdoing at work which is officially known as
making disclosure in the public interest.
There are mainly three types of whistle-blowing namely, internal whistleblowing, external whistle blowing and third party whistle blowing.
Most whistle-blowers are internal whistle-blowers, who report
misconduct on a fellow employee or superior within their company. One of the
most interesting questions with respect to internal whistle-blowers is why and
under what circumstances people will either act on the spot to stop illegal and
otherwise unacceptable behaviour or report it. There are some reason to believe
that people are more likely to take action with respect to unacceptable
behaviour, within an organization, if there are complaint systems that offer not
just options dictated by the planning and control organization, but a choice of
options for absolute confidentiality.
External whistle-blowing however, report misconduct to outside persons
or entities. In these cases, depending on the informations severity and nature,
whistle-blowers may report to regulators, law enforcement agencies
(government), or to the mass media. In some cases, external whistle-blowing is
encouraged by offering monetary reward.
The third party whistle-blowing service involves utilising an external
agency to inform the individuals at the top of the organisational pyramid of
misconduct, without disclosing the identity of the whistle-blower. This is a
relatively new phenomenon and has been developed due to whistle-blower
discrimination. International Whistle-blowers is an example of an
organisation involved in delivering a third party service for whistle-blowers.

CONTENT
Everything is done based a reason, may it be arguing with someone or a violent
action. Same principle applies here in the case of whistle-blowing. There has to
be a reason an individual in an organisation decides to start whistle-blowing
may it be a positive or negative reason.
The first reason an employee in an organisation does decides to start
whistle-blowing is because of revenge. It is in human nature to take revenge
towards the people who have did something wrong towards them. The so
called victim takes revenge to the other person indirectly by whistle-blowing.
The failure of this individual to confront the person directly may be due to his
lack of courage for a face-to-face dialogue. This is because men are more prone
to revenge injuries than to requite kindness. It is just a humanly behaviour to
want to take revenge, as Muhammad Ali once said, If you lose a big fight, It
will worry you all of your life. It will plague you until you get your revenge.
Why do these individuals fee revengeful? This is maybe because in their
organisation or company where they work in did not give them a long deserved
promotion or raise. Or worst still, giving the promotion or raise to someone you
are not fond off and undeserving of the promotion.
Another possible explanation why an employee whistle-blows in the name of
revenge is maybe because they want to avenge their employers behaviour
towards them. Their employers may be very abusive towards them in the
workplace. The employee facing the abusing may even feel ashamed of
themselves because of getting abused in from of the whole office, or worst still
having your own colleagues watch you getting verbally abused by your
employer. This may prompt the employee to take revenge on their employers
but maybe they are too afraid to do so. They will then turn to whistle-blowing.
They will start sharing their companies or organisations valuable and expensive
information with other organisation or companies in order to feel better for
themselves. In some cases, employees are too afraid to complain to the
authorities on the abusiveness occurring in the company due to fear of losing
their job. These people will then start to whistle-blowing on the abusiveness of
the employer.

Besides taking revenge, another reason an employee decides to whistleblow is to report corruption within their organisation. The employee may
whistle-bow this information to either the lawful authorities or the press in order

to bring justice to the one who committed the wrong doing. Corruption in an
organisation may occur in the form of swindling of company money, swindling
company assets, company property or company products. In the case of
swindling company assets, it means the employee is spending the company or
organisation money for their personal use. An employer might use the company
manpower for his personal use. Other employees might not be so happy about
him using and enjoying company privileges which he is not entitled to. Some
employees also misuse company property. For example, a hotel employee uses
one of the hotel suites meant for hotel guests for their own personal use. Other
employees might get jealous or angry towards that employee. This may prompt
them to start whistle-blowing about the certain corrupt employee in their
organisation. Misusing of company benefits is also a form of corruption. For
example, using company phone to make personal phone calls unrelated to work.
Another form is the stealing of company products. For example, an employee of
APPLE INC taking his companys iPhone using it for his personal use without
paying whereas it was meant to be sold to customers.
Corruption is a disease which spreads like a plague, as they say, one scabbed
sheep will mar a whole flock. These types of corruption in an organisation may
tempt a company employee to start whistle-blowing to the authorities or mass
media in order to expose the wrongdoings as the employee is concerned in the
wellbeing of the company or organisation.
The next reason an employee in an organisation does whistle-blowing is
for rewards. Lets be frank, its the 21 st century. Everybody needs money to
survive in this age. People are rewarded well for whistle-blowing. There are two
types of whistle-blowing for rewards, which are whistle-blowing for a good
purpose and whistle-blowing for a negative purpose. Whistle-blowing for a
good purpose may be to provide law enforcement agencies with information of
unlawful activities going on in the company. For example, a company tried to
manipulate their accounts check and balance by a few million for tax evasion
purposes. The government rewards whistle-blowers who disclose information to
the government about unlawful activities going on within an organisation.
Unlawful activities include business dealings with criminals, criminal
organisations or even terrorists. In a certain case, 6 whistle-blowers from an
unnamed organisation were given a $102million dollars reward for exposing a
syndicate in a company being used to harbour criminals from foreign countries.
With rewards these lucrative, employees wouldnt be afraid of whistle-blowing
at all. In another case in 1992, Mark Whitacre was on top of the world. He was
rich, happily married, and a rising star at his company. An executive at food

industry giant Archers Daniel Midland, he was president of their Bioproducts

Division which oversaw the use of food additives. But things changed
dramatically that year when he became involved in an international scheme to
fix the price of additives such as lysine and citric acid. Along with several major
Agribusiness companies from around the world, ADM artificially set the world
price for these additives and committed one of the biggest corporate crimes in
American history. Under pressure from his wife, Whitacre went to the FBI with
details of the plan. If that had been the end of it, Whitacre would still probably
be remembered as a great whistle-blower, but he went one step further. For the
next three years, Whitacre went undercover for the FBI and secretly recorded
hundreds of meetings all over the world to expose the plot. His evidence led to
hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the companies involved.
Whistle-blowing for negative purposes are usually for personal gain. In order to
be rewarded, these employees disclosed confidential information about an
organisation or company. This kinds of dealing are also known by other as
bribery. The official term for this kind of activity is known as corporate
espionage. For example, a company places a mole within another company who
whistle-blows information to the other company in exchange for rewards,
usually in the form of discreet transactions. Another example is where a
company places a whistle-blower in a government department. For arguments
sake, lets say the whistle-blower is in the Financial Ministry. The whistleblower may reveal any confidential plans of the government to the company
aforementioned. The company then pays the whistle-blower a sum of money for
his services. Then the company uses the information obtained from their
whistle-blower to make the situation to their advantage, in order to win the
contract from the government to make a large sum of profit.

Besides whistle-blowing for rewards, employees in an organisation do

whistle-blowing also because of personal safety as well as job security. A
responsible and ethical employee will not get involved in company
conspiracies. They stay away from these kinds of problem so that they can still
maintain their dignity and self-respect. But self-respect and job security does
not always come in the same package. Sometimes an employee has to get
involved in company conspiracies in order to be able to keep their job. These
are victims of corporate conspiracies and fraud. Some of the employees
however refused to be dragged into these corporate cover ups. An example of
cover ups these companies is shifting the blame of the death of an employee on
someone else when the cause of death was the own companys negligence.

These honest employees who refused to be dragged into the cover up fiasco of
their company will start thinking of ways to save themselves. Thats when these
employees will start whistle-blowing to the law enforcement offices in order to
ensure confidentiality of themselves.

Another reason employees in an organisation do whistle-blowing is to

ensure the safety of other people. When I say safety of other people, I mean the
safety of the general public and consumers. Some companies in the production
industry disobey rules and regulations laid down by the safety authorities from
the government. They do not obey safety standards set. Some industries also use
illegal or toxic substance in the production of their products. For instance, a
company uses cheap and low grade plastic to produce safety helmets for
motorists. These low quality products may cause grave danger to motorists and
may even cause deaths. A concerned employee will not play along with the flow
of the company because the lives of motorists are at stake. But at the same time,
the employee is worried of his/her job. The employee then resorts to whistleblowing in order to keep their job security, as well as doing their part to ensure
the safety of motorists on the road. Take GlaxoSmithKline for example. In
2003, Glaxo Quality Assurance Manager, Cherly Eckard warned her bosses that
standards at one of their huge factories in Puerto Rico were leaving a lot to be
desired. Drugs were being contaminated and frequently contained more or less
of the active ingredients than they were supposed to. Eckards warnings went
unheeded. Despite the fact that her job was on the line, she repeatedly
complained to the company and tried to get the factory up to code. For her
trouble, GlaxoSmithKline fired Eckard. Undeterred, she went to the authorities
and blew the whistle on the companys wrongdoing. After a lengthy legal battle,
GlaxoSmithKline was fined $750 million and forced to clean up the problems at
the factory. And Cherly Eckard? She was awarded a cool $96 million in
damages. Doing the right thing can be profitable sometimes. When the
employee starts whistle-blowing company secrets about the faulty products, the
safety board such as SIRIM and law enforcement offices will be able to
investigate and charge those involved in the conspiracy according to the rule of
law. Thus, whistle-blowing in this case saved numerous lives from being lost or
harmed.

CONCLUSION

Whistle blowing has two-edged sword effect as it brings positive and

negative implications to organizational and society. A whistle-blower may
consider as our hero as it brings positive implications to organization and
society, it may also consider as a traitor as it brings negative implications to
organization and society. Whistle blowing can help the organization by
informing the wrongdoing to the top management at early stage, so that
management can take appropriate corrective action at once. By doing this can
help to avoid the wrongdoing become more serious and uncontrollable in future
that may affect the public interest which may incur lawsuit to organization.
Therefore, whistle blowing can benefit the organization by lowering the cost of
doing business through reducing unnecessary lawsuit that may face by
organization because of wrongdoing or fraudulent. Whistle blowing can also
help to improve employees morale in an organization. Successful whistle
blowing shows to employees that they have power to change unethical
behaviour in the organization and improve their work lives. Whistle blowing
will also create positive climate in working environment that associated with
enhanced employees satisfaction. Whistle blowing also help to promote about
code of ethics to society. Whistle blower may serve as role model or hero of the
society that encourage ethical behaviour adapted by everyone in society.
Subsequently, our society will become integrity and peaceful, if everyone is
applying code of ethics in their daily life.
In conclusion, there are many reasons an employee does whistle-blowing,
the most important thing is that an organisation has to be transparent and open
to all its employees without bearing secrets. Employees also have to consider if
the integrity of himself and safety of people close to him will be harmed or not
if he decides to whistle-blow.

REFERENC/CITATION

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower

2) http://scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/whistleblowing.html
3) https://sites.google.com/site/omranalbloushi/whistle-blowing/types-ofwhistle
4) https://sites.google.com/site/omranalbloushi/whistle-blowing/reasons-for-whistleblowing

5) http://www.ethics.org/ethics-today/1008/guest-column.html
6) http://www.ehow.com/info_8176193_do-employees-ethical-dutywhistleblow.html
7) http://www.ehow.com/list_7606165_reasons-whistleblowing.html
8) http://blogs.psychcentral.com/manic-depression/2013/06/10/what-causeswhistleblowing-edward-snowdens-conscience-or-bipolar-disorder/

APPENDIX

STAGES OF WHISTLE-BLOWING INCIDENTS

Whistle-blowers from different organisations

Different views on Whistle-blowing

Public protesting in support for whistle-blowers

Public protesting in favor of whistle-blowing