Organizations are negatively impacted when they do not have an environment conducive to the reporting of wrongdoing. We believe that, by encouraging managers to create a culture of ethical behavior, we influence the groups and individuals of an organization to increase ethical reporting behavior.
Butler, J., Serra, D., & Spagnolo, G. (2020). Motivating Whistleblowers. MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, 66(2), 605-621. RePEc ID: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:419. Report #: 419. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3240 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2nh1q65g
This study explored how monetary incentives and social approval/disapproval affect an employees decision to blow the whistle on misbehavior. Their study offers guidance for internal whistleblowing policies by top managers to inform decisions about whistleblowing in lower management. The study was conducted using a focus group with randomly assigned members of the firm or a member of the public with the combination of independent work and a series of simulated games. The 5 stages of the experiment were identity building, coordination game, whistleblowing game, coordination game, and a survey at the end. The conditions studied were reward vs. no reward. social judgement vs. no social judgement, and visible vs. invisible externalities. The results found strong evidence that financial rewards are effective at encouraging whistleblowing but even more effective when the whistleblower is subject to social judgement. Another result found that external social judgement encourages whistleblowing only when the public does not feel directly affected by negative externalities. The researchers suggest, based on these findings, that in order to maximize whistleblowing, industries/fraud should be classified based on the negative effects on the public and policies should be adopted either protecting or exposing whistleblowers. Taking these findings into account, our topic on managerial ethics in internal whistleblowing addresses policy decisions by managers so the next course of actions for managers in this position is to implement policies concerning financial reward for whistleblowers.
Cheng, Bai, H., & Yang, X. (2017). Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing: A Mediated Moderation Model. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(1), 115–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3517-3
Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing: A Mediated Moderation Model is a scientific study of Organizational Behavior of leadership within companies. The paper connects with our topic of managerial ethics and internal whistleblowing by looking at the relationship between ethical leadership, internal whistleblowing, and the perception of organizational politics. Research within the article found that there is a fairly direct correlation between how leaders act toward their subordinates, and thus how willing subordinates are to internally whistleblow. Taking this into account, the article will be extremely helpful in showing how the ethical behavior of managers can create a culture where whistleblowing is seen as acceptable and helpful behavior in corporate organizations.
DeTienne , K. B., Ellertson , C. F., Ingerson , M.-C., & Dudley , W. R. (2019, November 18). Moral Development in Business Ethics: An Examination and Critique. Springer Link . Retrieved April 26, 2022, from https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/article/10.1007/s10551-019-04351-0
This article is a paper that explains behavioral ethics and how it is similar to early work in moral psychology. A concern within the research of behavioral ethics is the moral judgment-action gap. Which is the inconsistency people show when they know what is considered right but act on what they know is wrong. This paper also describes modern theories of ethical decision-making in business ethics and the gaps in our current understanding. This is valuable information because to create a work environment that encourages internal whistleblowing there has to be an understanding of what’s considered right and wrong.
Miller, Kark, R., & Zohar, N. (2018). Her/His Ethics? Managerial Ethics in Moral Decision-Making from a Contextual, Gendered, and Relational Perspective. Sex Roles, 80(3-4), 218–233. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0920-x
Her/His Ethics? Managerial Ethics in Moral Decision-Making from a Contextual, Gendered, and Relational Perspective is a study on moral decision making in an organizational setting through the lense of gender roles and stereotypes. Based on past research of gender roles and decision making in organizations. The study found that while there may be differences in gender, moral thinking and decision making depend more on contextual factors which shape manager decision and morality. In relation to our topic, the article found that an organization’s context can shape how moral decisions are made. There was also relevance in relation to manager supervisor relationship, and found that managers may rarely directly oppose a supervisor’s decision. How moral decision making may also be based on the type of workplace organization rather than on gender. This article overall touches on extremely important base ideas for factors of moral decision making.
Ogunfowora, B, Maerz, A, Varty, CT. How do leaders foster morally courageous behavior in employees? Leader role modeling, moral ownership, and felt obligation. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 2021; 42: 483– 503. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2508
This study shows a link between improved Morally Courageous Behaviour (MCB) from employees and ethical role-modeling from managers. In two studies, the authors show that, by acting as ethical role models within an organization, managers may improve incidents of MCB from employees. They also specifically use whistle-blowing as an MCB benchmark within their studies.
These studies show that ethical behavior from leadership has an impact on the likelihood of whistleblowing. Positive organizational ethical behavior does result in positive employee whistleblowing results. The study also shows that creating an ethical environment is paramount to ensuring employees feel comfortable with reporting wrongdoing within their organization. This information should be used to encourage managers to maintain an ethical position within their organization and become a positive ethical role model for their employees.
Van Portfliet, M. Resistance Will Be Futile? The Stigmatization (or Not) of Whistleblowers. Journal of Business Ethics 175, 451–464 (2022). https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1007/s10551-020-04673-4
In this article, Meghan Van Portfliet discusses the stigmatization of whistleblowers, how those stigmas develop, and how they may be overcome. The paper finds that the identity of “whistleblower” contains internal and external stigmatizing factors that contribute to a whistleblower’s inability to move on from the whistleblower identity. The article looks into two specific cases of whistleblowing and follows the actions of the whistleblowers as they attempt to cope with their whistleblower identities.
As we aim to increase the incidence of whistleblowing in a workplace, knowing how individuals and groups respond to whistleblowers is an important part of ensuring retaliation and stigmatization do not increase as well. Showing that “whistleblower” is a relational identity, that can be rejected or embraced by the whistleblower, means that there is an opportunity for the organization to engage the whistleblowing identity as a positive identifier and encourage positive social interactions around the term. It also shows the importance of organizational advocacy groups in helping whistleblowers come to terms with the social stigmas they might face.
Yasir, M., & Mohamad, N. A. (2016). Ethics and Morality: Comparing Ethical Leadership with Servant, Authentic and Transformational Leadership Styles. International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(4S), 310–316. https://doi.org/https://www.econjournals.com/index.php/irmm/article/view/2504
This article’s authors define several leadership styles and compares them to each other relative to the goal of creating an ethical workplace environment. They clarify the expectations and methodologies commonly used by several modern leadership styles and they take a deeper look into what it means for a leadership style to be ethical. They also compare and contrast the ethical strenghts and weaknesses of those leadership styles.
This article gives the foundation for our discussions of leadership styles. It dicusses relevant, modern leadership styles and brings up the shortcomings of those styles while also showing where Ethical Leadership can help step in and fill holes that lie in other modern leadership styles’ blindspots.
Individual Contributions:
Gareth Goodman-Peavy
Carlin Padgett
Danica Holt
Maya Schrader