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To the uninitiated or the foolish, 'whistleblowing' may readily seem like a niche, almost boutique issue for research and policy making. The 'disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action' (Near and Miceli 1985: 4), sounds like a very specific, perhaps even narrow or technical field of study. And yet, in the modern age of institutions, whistleblowing is now established as one of the most important processes-if not the single most important process-by which governments and corporations are kept accountable to the societies they are meant to serve and service. The ability for organizational 'insiders' to speak up about wrongdoing, and what happens afterwards in terms of corrective responses and treatment of the people involved, lies at the very heart of the health of all institutions and modern regulatory processes, right across society. In many ways, therefore, the subject could also not be broader, nor more far-reaching in terms of its complexities and consequences. This Handbook provides researchers and policy makers from around the world with a comprehensive overview of the state of our knowledge regarding this vital process, in light of the last 30 years of progressively more systematic research into whistleblowing. As well, it provides cutting-edge analysis of the conceptual and practical challenges that researchers should confront in the next decade, if our knowledge is to develop so as to better inform the way that whistleblowing is understood and responded to by organizations, regulatory authorities and governments. The Handbook follows and draws upon some important previous stocktakes of coverage and gaps in existing research (e.g., Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005; Miceli et al. 2008), and observations on the limitations of inconsistent and uncoordinated research (Miceli and Near 2013) as well as closely related fields like employee voice (Burke and Cooper 2013). The book also comes at a time when the reform of

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