Whistleblowing: Don’t Encourage It, Prevent It; Comment on “Cultures of Silence And Cultures of Voice: The Role Of Whistleblowing in Healthcare Organisations”

Document Type : Commentary

Author

Department of Social Sciences, New York City College of Technology (CUNY), New York City, NY, USA

Abstract

In a recent article, Mannion and Davies argue that there are a multitude of ways in which organizations (such as the National Health Service [NHS]) can deal with wrongdoing or ethical problems, including the formation of policies that encourage and protect would-be whistleblowers. However, it is important to distinguish internal reporting about wrongdoing from whistleblowing proper, because the two are morally quite different and should not be dealt with in the same way. This article argues that we should not understand the authors’ conclusions to apply to “whistleblowing” proper, because their recommended approach would be both unfeasible and undesirable for addressing whistleblowing defined in this way.

Highlights

 

 

Watch the Video Summary here. 

 

Keywords

Main Subjects

Full Text

 

 

References

  1. Mannion R, Davies HTO. Cultures of silence and cultures of voice: the role of whistleblowing in healthcare organisations. Int J Health Policy Manag. 2015;4(8):503-505. doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2015.120
  2. Jubb PB. Whistleblowing: a restrictive definition and interpretation. J Bus Ethics. 1999;21(1):77-94.
  3. Grant C. Whistle blowers: saints of secular culture. J Bus Ethics. 2002;39(4):391-399.
  4. De George RT. Business Ethics. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall; 2010.
  5. Davis M. Whistleblowing. In: International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Blackwell Publishing Ltd; 2013.
  6. Davis M. Some paradoxes of whistleblowing. Bus Prof Ethics J. 1996;15(1):3-19. doi:10.5840/bpej19961517
  7. Davis M. Avoiding the tragedy of whistleblowing. Bus Prof Ethics J. 1989;8(4):3-19.  doi:10.5840/bpej19898419
  8. Kant I. The Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1996.
  9. Larmer RA. Whistleblowing and employee loyalty. J Bus Ethics. 1992;11(2):125-128.      doi:10.1007/BF00872319
  10. Mesmer-Magnus JR, Viswesvaran C. Whistleblowing in organizations: an examination of correlates of whistleblowing intentions, actions, and retaliation. J Bus Ethics. 2005;62(3):277-297. doi:10.1007/sl0551-005-0849-l
  11. MacDougall DR. Whistleblowing and the bioethicist’s public obligations. Camb Q Healthc Ethics. 2014;23(4):431-442.
  12. Weinberg N. The Dark side of whistleblowing. Forbes 2005.http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0314/090.html. Accessed September 14, 2015.
  13. Murphy S, Dembner A. All acquitted in drug kickbacks case: Jury deals a blow to US prosecutors. The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/15/all_acquitted_in_drug_kickbacks_case/?page=full. Accessed September 14, 2015

Files

History

  • Received Date: 15 September 2015
  • Revised Date: 17 October 2015
  • Accepted Date: 14 October 2015
  • First Published Date: 01 March 2016

Share

How to cite

Statistics