Whistleblowing and power: A network perspective

Abstract

This article presents a network perspective on whistleblowing. It considers how whistleblowing affects, and is affected by, the preexisting distribution of power inside and outside an organization, where power is conceptualized as deriving from the network positions of the key actors. The article also highlights four characteristic features of whistleblowing: third‐party detriment, local subversion, appeal to central or external power, and reasonable expectation of concern. The feature of local subversion succinctly explains why whistleblowing is difficult. The feature of appeal to central or external power highlights that contrary to the perception of a democratizing phenomenon, whistleblowing tends to redistribute discretion away from local power toward more central power. This suggests a need for caution about institutional measures to promote whistleblowing in contexts where governance is already highly centralized.

“Reporting the wrong to the right”: the mediated moderation model of whistleblowing education and the whistleblowing intentions

“…One possible solution suggested is a “whistleblowing education” – training employees with an intent to encourage them informing on any wrongdoing within the organization (Berry, 2004) – which may provide organizations with support in addressing the menace of financial misconduct directly or indirectly. Educating employees on whistleblowing entailing the inclusion of reporting any misconduct with ensured privacy and security (Thomas, 2020; Valentine and Godkin, 2019) may prompt motivation to report any such misconduct by promoting the sense of becoming responsible and moral people.…”

Fairly and Justly? Are Employment Tribunals Able to Even Out Whistleblowing Power Imbalances?

“…They find that 'power to change' was the most important attribute of whistleblowing. Hence, our assertion here is that whistleblowers take their employer to ET in a call upon the ET judge to speak justice, which is an 'appeal' to a central power (Thomas, 2020) to even out the power differences that has made the whistleblower ineffective and retaliated against.…”

“…Thus, what drives a whistleblower to blow the whistle again, to a different recipient, is the search to get out of the power imbalance that makes their whistleblowing ineffective and unsafe. Thomas (2020) writes that one of the characteristics of whistleblowing is its appeal to a central or external power. Park et al (2020) researched motivations of external whistleblowers using a means-end-chain approach.…”

Selecting the Chair of the Whistleblower Protection Office in Slovakia: “Fight Against Corruption” as the Last (and Only) Public Interest?

“…Other scholars have pointed out that this perspective, although it refines the analysis by adding new contextual factors, such as organisational characteristics (Gagnon and Perron 2020) or relations between key actors (Thomas 2020), nevertheless remains too linear and narrow and neglects the fact that whistleblowing is an ambiguous process involving a transformation of the whistleblower's subjectivity in relation to their environment, rather than a specific moment of individual decision-making between silence and blowing the whistle (Teo and Caspersz 2011). To understand whistleblowing in a more nuanced way, the analyses of various authors (e.g., Contu 2014;Mansbach 2007;Vandekerckhove and Langenberg 2012;Weiskopf and Tobias-Miersch 2016) have employed the Foucauldian concept of "parrhesia", which is a specific form of criticism characterised by a "movement by which the subject gives himself the right to question the truth on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth" (Foucault 2003: 266).…”