Why Do We Do It?
Given the high probability of retaliation and the low
probability of success, why do people become whistleblowers?
One line of analysis searches for individual predictors of
whistleblowing[1]. Demographics, such as age and sex, proved to be
unreliable indicators of future whistleblowing.
Some situational factors provided small predictive value but seemed
consistent with plausible theory: longer tenure implied access to incriminating
information as did certain positions (like internal audit), greater commitment
to the organization might imply a desire for the organization to act properly
although it might incline an observer to conceal a wrong out of loyalty. Conflicting situational factors could both be
predictive: a sense of personal victimization from company retaliation appeared
to encourage whistleblowing as did company policies that supported ethical
behavior.
A second approach to understanding why people disclose
organizational offenses is to ask them. In
response to a 2013 survey[2],
whistleblowers said they reported misdeeds externally for many reasons: the
problem continued and an outsider might stop it; insiders had not proven
trustworthy in fixing the problem; the reporter feared retaliation; the
reporter might get a big reward. Other
than the possibility of a reward, the responses left unclear the
whistleblower’s internal motivation for making the disclosure.
Moral reasoning could be what leads whistleblowers to
action, at least according to some.
James Rest[3]
proposed a four-step process – involving moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral
motivation, and moral commitment – to arrive at ethical action, including
blowing the whistle on a wrongdoing. By alluding
to something greater, philosophical analysis can also be handy in countering a
demand for company loyalty that makes the whistleblower the greater villain in
the situation[4].
Others[5]
have observed that moral judgments seem to come a lot faster than Rest’s
measured steps allow. They contend that emotions and philosophical intuitions precede our philosophical judgments,
which follow by way of rationalizing what we have already decided.
Another interviewer, C. Fred Alford[6]
concluded that whistleblowers are driven by a “choiceless choice,” as a consequence
of their accumulated experiences and prior judgments. They feel forced to act as they do, whether by
strongly held moral ideals or moral narcissism, Alford decided. News reports of whistleblowers[7]
sometimes convey that sense of nearly compulsive pursuit of their projects.
I confess that none of these explanations seem to match
perfectly my path as a whistleblower.
While our personal motivations are always difficult, maybe impossible,
to figure, perhaps the passage of three years has sufficiently clarified my
perception of the experience.
Why I Did It
Jenny
Niklaus became HomeFirst’s CEO a little more than a year after we had
almost turned the company around, by cutting expenses, selling assets, and
convincing funders to stay with us. A
generally pleasant, voluble young woman, she was light on experience and seemed
to me to lack the intellectual toughness needed to deal with HomeFirst’s
remaining problems. Quite sociable, she
was keen to make HomeFirst a leader in the community. She cried at the plight of the company’s
homeless clients, conveying her and the company’s dedication to those
disadvantaged folks.
Over the next three years, HomeFirst continued to lose money. As cash grew tight, I urged expense reduction
measures, which Niklaus rejected. We
fought over the 2013-14 budget, but she prevailed with the Board in June
2013. When a former HomeFirst
development director said to me, “You know Jenny’s an idiot, right?” I could
still laugh.
Preparing for the annual audit in July, I compared a per diem contract the company
had recently received from the VA to a County of Santa Clara contract that I
had billed on a per diem basis. I came
away concerned that the County billing was incorrect. Although Niklaus and others were aware of the
billing approach, I was responsible.
Nervous, I hurried to research the matter before our
auditors arrived. My contact at the
County confirmed that I had used an incorrect method, which had resulted in overbilling
the County by about $130,000 over the course of two years. When I had tried to conceal a minor fraud from
auditors at a different company in 2005, things had not worked out as planned
so I hoped to fix the problem this time.
Angry, embarrassed, a little frightened, I confessed my
mistake to Niklaus the day before she was to leave for vacation in Mexico. She blew up and said I’d made a big mistake,
not for overbilling but for letting the County know about it. After she returned, she and the program
officer would deal with my contact at the County and her boss, leaving me out
of the discussion and annoyed. Maybe discussions
occurred, I could not find out for sure, but three years later the amount would
still not be repaid to the County.
And so I became a whistleblower. The trigger was pulled but not because I made
some ethical assessment and decision.
Not because I was overcome by a shock of emotion. Not because I was forced to act by an irresistible
internal impulse. Instead, a gradual
buildup of dissatisfaction had reached a level that I was no longer willing to dismiss
or laugh off.
In August 2013 Niklaus, two other executive staff members, and I
met on a Monday as usual. After discussing
the overbilling, I raised, almost innocently, a question about our possible
violation of licensing requirements at one large location. Niklaus went ballistic spewing a litany of
irrational objections, and it was clear to me, and possibly to all present,
that we had carved a deep line between company and whistleblower.
These and each of my ten complaints against HomeFirst presented
a potential legal violation. Ethics were
a plausible reason for my whistleblowing every time: taxpayers were cheated, homeless
individuals were deprived of their rights or endangered, lies were told. But just as much, an older, frustrated guy
with no place else to go was set in battle against a company and its CEO who
were under pressure and also had few easy options. So the guy discloses deeds that might not certify
the company’s guilt, and the company retaliates even if that violates the law.
[1]
For example, Cassematis,
P. G. and R. Wortley. “Prediction of Whistleblowing or
Non-reporting Observation.”
Journal of Business Ethics 117 (2013): 615-634.
Ahmad, Syahrul, George Smith and Zubaidah Ismail. “Internal Whistle-Blowing Intentions: A Study of Demographic and
individual Factors.” Journal of
Modern Accounting and Auditing 8.11 (November 2012): 1632-1645. Miceli, Marcia P., Janet P. Near, and Terry Morehead Dworkin. Whistle-blowing in Organizations. New
York: Rutledge. 2008. Mesmer-Magnus, Jessica R. and Chockalingam
Viswesvaran. “Whistleblowing in Organizations: An
Examination of Correlates of Whistleblowing Intentions, Actions, and
Retaliation.” Journal of
Business Ethics 62 (2005): 277–297
[3] Rest, James with Muriel
Bebeau and Joseph Volker. Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory. New York: Praeger. 1986
[4]
For example, Bok, Sisella. “Whistleblowing
and Professional Responsibility.” New York University Education Quarterly 11.4 (1980): 2-10. De
George, Richard T. Business
Ethics. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. 2006
[5]
For example, Greene, Joshua D. “The
Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul.” In
Moral Psychology: The Neuroscience of
Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development (Volume 3). W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.). Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2008. 35–80. Haidt, Jonathan. “The
Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral
Judgment.” Psychological Review 108.4 (2001): 814-834. Knobe, Joshua, Wesley Buckwalter, Shaun Nichols,
Philip Robbins, Hagop Sarkissian and Tamler Sommers. “Experimental Philosophy.”
Annual Review of Psychology 63 (2012):
81-99. Alexander, Joshua. Experimental Philosophy: an Introduction. Cambridge UK: Polity. 2012
[6] Alford, C. Fred. Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and
Organizational Power.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. 2001
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