WHISTLE BLOWING AND EMPLOYEE LOYALTY DUSKA

Transcription

1 WHISTLE BLOWING AND EMPLOYEE LOYALTY DUSKA Industrial espionage, whistle blowing or professional responsibility it is another tactic for spreading disunity and creating conflict Bowie claims that whistle blowing violates a prima facie duty of loyalty to one s employer, there is a duty of loyalty that prohibits one from reporting his employer or company I want to argue that one does not have an obligation of loyalty to a company, even a prima facie one, because companies are not the kind of things that are properly objects of loyalty Idealists who hold that loyalty is devotion to something more than persons, to some cause or abstract entity. One the other side are what Ladd calls social atomists and these include empiricists and utilitarians who think that at most one can only be loyal to the individuals and that loyalty can ultimately be explained away as some other obligation that holds between two people. Finally, there is a moderate position that holds that although idealists go too far in postulating some super-personal entity as an object of loyalty, loyalty is still an important and real relation that holds between people, one that cannot be dismissed by reducing it in some other relation To avoid the problem of individual existing for the sake of the group, the atomists insists that a group is nothing more than the individuals who comprise it, nothing other than a mental fiction by which we refer to a group of individuals A company has no moral status except in terms of the individual members who comprise it There is a division of labour into roles necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes of the group It seems then that an atomist account of loyalty that restricts loyalty merely to individuals and does not include loyalty to groups might be inadequate A business or corporation does to things in the free enterprise system: it produces a good or service and it makes a profit A company feels no obligation of loyalty Business functions on the basis of enlightened self interest The cold hard truth is that the goal of profit is what gives birth to a company and forms that particular group A company is not a person, a company is an instrument and an instrument with a specific purpose, the making of a profit What is perceived as bad about whistle blowing in business from this perspective is that one blows the whistle on one s own team, thereby violating team loyalty

2 Rival companies compete and their object is to win. To call a foul on one s own teammate is to jeopardized one s chance of winning and is viewed as disloyalty The issue is not only of disloyalty to the company, but of whether the whistle blower has an obligation to society if blowing the whistle will bring him retaliation WHISTLE BLOWING AND ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS BRENKERT Whistle-blowing is largely a contemporary phenomenon that has increased infrequency and extent There are other important issues to which answers regarding the justification of this or that act of whistle blowing may only be a partial and frequently ineffective response Whistle blowing is 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 It seems that the whistle blower is a person with privileged access to an organization s data or information that he has gained due to his official relationship with the organization Even though whistle blowing must be a deliberate act, any particular whistle blower might not want his or her name associated with the act of whistle blowing Particularly in Europe anonymous whistle blowing has been viewed as unjustified Whistle blowing is reserved conceptually only for serious moral faults Whistle blowing need not to be someone in authority, though frequently it will be Through one s association or membership with an organization, one takes on certain responsibilities one would not otherwise have I will argue that in accordance with a principle of positional responsibility a person has a responsibility to blow the whistle In each situation potentially involving whistle blowing one must not simply consider whether there are good moral reasons to blow the whistle but also whether one should, all things considered blow the whistle given the balance of responsibilities and ideal forms of behavior to which or she is committed The employer/employee relationship has both legal and moral aspects. Since both the law and applications of moral standards differ from society to society, these differences will have an impact on the justification of whistle blowing in different societies Any action that might jeopardize their jobs or the company may be viewed as disloyal and undercutting what they hold important. A person of integrity would seriously regard each of these duties

3 If we assume that the principal would want to know about wrongdoing so that he or she could correct it then an employee would be justified on the basis of this job responsibility to report the wrongdoing to his principle Whistle-blowing occurs when the person one reports to has rejected one s notice regarding some wrongdoing Such disobedience is generally taken to be a sign of disloyalty. Thus, whistle blowing only occurs when one does not follow the usual hierarchical order of reporting. If one breaks ranks, as it were, to inform someone not in one s usual line of reporting one then becomes a whistle blower The principle of positional responsibility tells us that due to a special organizational or situational position we occupy involving knowledge of wrongdoing, as well as our ability to have an effect on correcting a wrong of some importance through making it known, a person acquires a responsibility to speak out Standing arises because as a member of the organization (or one who has privileged access) one supports the organization through one s actions (or even sometimes one s inactions) one is more likely to have verifiable knowledge unavailable to others through such an association and by having access to officials in the organization there may be an initial presumption on may more easily and effectively bring about change In contrast to a general principle of beneficence, a principle of positional responsibility would prioritize the wrongs to be addressed based upon the above contextual conditions of organizational membership, knowledge and ability to have an effect on correcting the alleged wrongs A special responsibility falls on one due to the circumstances defined by Principle of Positional Responsibility PPR lays out a responsibility we have within its own narrow framework but does not define the weight or stringency we should attribute to it Ethicists commonly distinguish between obligations we have and admirable actiosn that goes beyond our duties. Ideal and even heroic acts are termed supererogatory Prima facie, one ought to report the wrongdoing. Similarly one s other duties of loyalty obedience as well as respect for those one works for are also prima facie One s obligation to report should be directed internally because the source of wrongdoing comes through the organization To report externally, as long as there were other reasonable internal venues would be to undercut their responsibilities and not give them a chance to do what they should do An employee does not have a responsibility to challenge insurmountable barriers The more a business undercuts the conditions required for the fulfillment of one s responsibility to report internally, the weaker is this responsibility to the organization

4 Morality does not require that one take such steps or that one uselessly sacrifice oneself in this manner, even if the aim is noble This means that though the whistle blower must act on the basis of a known wrongdoing, he can do so with only a very limited comprehension of the full situation Emphasize the importance of being accurate in the charges one brings The risk to oneself directly affects one s moral responsibility to blow the whistle since it may negatively affect many of one s other responsibilities, important interests and projects However, employees do not, ordinarily, have a responsibility unless they so choose to sacrifice their health, lives for futures for a business by helping to prevent the damage that the wrongdoings of others may do to them A person doing his duty by blowing the whistle may at the same time justifiably seek to avoid grave risks to himself When we may say that blowing the whistle is beyond the call of ordinary duty. It is not a moral requirement that one is obliged to fulfill A person of integrity will integrate these normative facets of her life into some reasonable coherent whole When an instance of whistle blowing arises, the justified course of action will be filtered through these different normative dimensions of one s justified values and norms Even with internal whistle blowing one must decide to step outside the security, protections and relatively anonymity of the normal hierarchy to make moral stand for what ought to be done It is too easy to say abstractly considered, one has a moral obligation to blow the whistle without placing this obligation within the broader context of the other responsibilities, values and practical implications for the whistle blower Focusing on this question distracts us from the underlying problem of the misconduct occurring in or through organizations that organizations themselves fail to identify and correct Whistle blowing as a response to wrongdoing by organizations and the people in them has considerable weaknesses The current focus on individual whistle blowing is often the justification of sacrificial victims on behalf of ineffective efforts The real ethical problem whistle blowing raises is how do we create self correcting organizations that catch violations by themselves and do not rely on individuals If an organization s self correcting method is dependent simply on monitors or auditors to detect its problems, then it will always be inadequate since such an approach can never have a monitor in each office and for every action

5 The members of organizations must also have acknowledged responsibility to come forward when they see misconduct Self-correcting organizations would have to institute measures to foster an attitude among employees willing to push back against directions to engage in illegal or unethical behaviors Cultural changes are necessary to address the situation that has often been reported of insiders who see wrong things being done but tend not to report them Since an organization is not wholly self contained system but exists only within political, economic, social and legal context of its time, there is a role for the broader social and political system in the preceding, for example, for the government to provide penalties for harming or harassing whistle-blowers and incentives for whistle blowers to come forward with valuable information