Whistleblowing is bound to increase
Why research whistleblowers?
I had for many years studied cooperatives of workers and women and how their organisation differed from the bureaucratic model of organisation. People kept asking me, "But what of people with strong values in the corporate or public sector?' I realised that value-driven people in bureaucratic organisations might well become the whistleblowers of the future.
How did you locate whistleblowers?
In the early 1990s, parade magazine ran an a brief article on them, also directing would-be whistleblowers to a support service being run by a fellow in Maryland. The article gave a toll-free phone number. I called this person and found he had received nearly 1,000 calls. He shared their numbers with me and that became the basis for my sample.
Isn't it difficult to get them to talk?
Actually, their willingness to talk was amazing. Initially, they'd be suspicious. But after we assured them that we really were university researchers, every single person agreed. Many told us how grateful they were for the chance to talk about their cases with someone who was not out to get them.
Salient outcomes of the study?
Whistleblowers take big risks. They are so many examples of integrity and purpose in the face of retaliation. In our study of 394 whistleblowers and 218 silent observers, we learned retaliation against the whistleblowers is even more severe and more certain than we had thought. In our sample, 69 per cent of the internal whistleblowers and some 84 per cent of the external whistleblowers were fired or forced to resign or retire, even though whistleblowing tends to be more common among persons who have been high performers. Behind these numbers lies intense distress