Based on nationwide data the authors collected on whistle-blowers and on silent observers, this article reports, that (a) whistle-blowing is more frequent in the public sector than in the private; (b) there are almost no sociodemographic characteristics that distinguish the whistle-blower from the silent observer; (c) whistle-blowers suffer severe retaliation from management, especially when their information proves significant; and (d) no special method of disclosure or personal characteristics can insulate the whistle-blower from such retaliation. Furthermore, the authors found that retaliation was most certain and severe when the reported misconduct was systematic and significant—when the practices exposed were part of the regular, profit accumulation process of the organization. The authors conclude from their interviews that the journey to exoneration that follows a whistle-blower's disclosures often alters the whistle-blower's identity, leading them to see themselves as people who resist hurtful or criminal conduct in the workplace.

The current study reviews the literature on whistleblowing and examines its role in detecting and controlling organizational misconduct. We begin with a definition of this concept, show how micro‐level theories of “deviance” explain whistleblowing, summarize evidence on its prevalence and correlates, and examine the legal protection of whistleblowers against organizational retaliation. The effectiveness of whistleblowing legislation in encouraging the reporting of organizational misconduct is also discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the relative costs and benefits of whistleblowing as a method of social control of organizational misconduct.

Over the past 30 years, the collectivist-democratic form of organization has presented a growing alternative to the bureaucratic form, and it has proliferated, here and around the world. This form is manifest, for example, within micro-credit groups, workers' co-operatives, nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups, self-help groups, community and municipal initiatives, social movement organizations, and in many nonprofit groups in general. It is most visible in the civil society sector, but demands for deeper participation are also evident in communities and cities, and the search for more involving and less bureaucratic structures has spread into many for-profit firms as well. Building on research on this form of organization, this article develops a model of the decisional processes utilized in such organizations and contrasts these "Democracy 2.0" standards for decision making from the Democracy 1.0 (representative and formal) standards that previously prevailed. Drawing on a new generation of research on these sorts of organizations, this article and this special section discuss: (a) how consensus decisional processes are being made more efficient; (b) how such organizations are now able to scale to fairly large size while still retaining their local and participatory basis; (c) how such organizations are cultivating a more diverse membership and using such diversity to build more democratic forms of governance; (d) how such organizations are combatting ethnoracial and gender inequalities that prevail in the surrounding society; and (e) how emotions are getting infused into the public conversations within these organizations and communities.

What has come to be called ‘whistleblowing’ has grown enormously in the US over recent decades and it is spreading rapidly around the world. The research on which this paper is based develops a sample of whistleblowers from all walks of life and all regions of the US. This article focuses specifically on the treatment of whistleblowers in the non-profit sector. In examining the political meaning of the act of whistleblowing, the author describes whistleblowing as an act of parrhesia. In ancient Greece this was a citizen request to speak freely and frankly. In the case of the whistleblowers, they are moved to speak publicly and candidly, even without permission to do so, in defense of the substantive purposes of the organization that employs them. This study finds that there is little difference in how whistleblowers are treated in the three sectors of our economy. In the majority of cases in this sample, the organizational managers against whom the whistleblowers level claims of wrongdoing, seek quickly to discredit, defame and terminate them. The author’s research does find that most employees in non-profit organizations view their employer as reasonably open to their inputs. Nevertheless, these positive perceptions of the employer are destroyed among those employees who witness what they define as wrongful or illegal conduct on the part of their employer, and particularly where the employee brings their observations of corruption to “higher-ups” in the organization and sees no corrective action take place. The retaliation that too often follows their disclosures of corrupt practices leaves them with a magnified sense of their own integrity, a new political identity, and an indelible sense of distrust toward senior managers and hierarchal organizations in general. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how non-profit organizations could respond in a more constructive way to dissenting viewpoints.

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