The Mystery of Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing seems to me a curious subject. The primary mystery is figuring who will become
a whistleblower. Marcia
P. Miceli, a professor at Georgetown University, has written
and co-authored research since 1982 on whistleblowing and who is likely to become
a whistleblower. She and others[1]
have considered many possible reasons for the decision to turn against the
organization.
Personal qualities – like gender, age, extroversion,
religious fervor – do not provide convincing explanations why people become
whistleblowers. Situational factors – such
as job, organization size and culture, industry – do not predict well. A core puzzle: why do some disclose
wrongdoing while others with the same opportunity stay silent? At HomeFirst, I revealed possible misdeeds,
but the Chief Program Officer, Chief Development Officer, several Program
Managers, and members of the Board stood quietly while I was fired for it.
We feel good about whistleblowers when we witness their
moral courage. So brave, they speak
truth to power. The
organizations, of course, call them traitors, poor performers, and problem
cases. But when we read their claims
about the resistors, our confident admiration can soften. The whistleblower, who is accused of tasering
his girlfriend, brutality,
stealing
from a client, biting
police officers, or making
a racist Facebook post, may not be the moral hero we would imitate.
James
Damore published a memo
baring Google’s liberal biases. He disagreed
that gender gaps in pay and power necessarily imply sexism. Biological differences to help explain unequal
rewards for men and women in the technology industry, he said. This wins him praise from alt-right
voices and criticism from those
who have experienced the sexual bias that Damore dismisses as natural.
Damore insists that his paper was a
protected discussion of workplace conditions: he is a whistleblower. Goggle contends that he
violated Google policies and it had every
right to fire him as an at-will employee.
It is the familiar whistleblower-company debate. But mixed with more than the usual moral
ambiguity. So ambiguous that
whistleblower Damore takes a position precisely opposite that of whistleblower Ellen
Pao. Pao won praise for calling out
sexual discrimination at the powerful Silicon Valley law firm Kleiner Perkins. Still she lost her lawsuit against the firm.
Interior Department scientist Joel
Clement was reassigned to an accounting department job because the Trump administration
rejects his research findings on global warming. Clement expands
whistleblowing in a new direction. His
environmental stance is far from uniquely courageous. Instead Clement joins a majority
of Americans and most
world leaders in believing that the climate is changing.
In the early days of whistleblowing[2],
the misdeeds we disclosed were impressive and we were noble. Today the whistleblower umbrella is open wide. It covers employees who do their jobs and
those who bear a grudge. The moral and
immoral are included. Those who fight
for public good and those who rationalize private benefit are embraced. We praise individuals who stand alone and
those who join with millions to voice their concerns.
Whistleblowing is speech that happens to offend someone in
an organization. It’s natural, and it should
be unexceptional.
[1]
For example, Avakian, Stephanos/Joanne Roberts (2012); Bocchiaro, Piero/Philip G. Zimbardo/Paul
A.M. Van Lange (2012); Cassematis, P. G./R. Wortley
(2013); Comer, Debra R./Gina Vega (2011); Henik, Erika Gail (2008); Gundlach, Michael J., Mark J. Martinko,
Scott C. Douglas (2008); Hollings, James (2013); Keil, Mark/Amrit Tiwana/Robert
Sainsbury/Sweta Sneha (2010); Mesmer-Magnus, Jessica R./Chockalingam
Viswesvaran (2005); and Vadera, Abhijeet K./Ruth V. Aguilar/Brianna
B. Caza (2009)
[2]
Cf. Nader, Ralph, Peter J. Petkas, and
Kate Blackwell (eds.) Whistle
Blowing: The Report of the Conference on Professional Responsibility. New
York: Grossman Publishers. 1972
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