The present article shifts the focus and burden of whistleblowing away from an individual to the collective and argues for the necessary incorporation of whistleblowing into an ethical infrastructure in institutions of higher education. The authors argue that institutions of higher learning should be understood as collective agents bestowed with ethical responsibility which obliges them to act in an ethical manner. The fundamental principle guiding the ethical practice of all higher-learning institutions should be a culture of voice because conscientization – (...) the purpose of education – necessitates dialogue to emerge. However, this culture of voice is not self-evident in institutions of higher learning and transpires in the harmful ways in which some of these institutions react to the disclosure of their problematic practices by whistleblowers. In light of this, the authors propose that one should not expect individuals to assume a whistleblower role; it is the higher-education institution’s ethical responsibility to create an infrastructure which integrates channels for critical engagement with problematic practices and supports a culture of voice. This infrastructure should consist of four fundamental elements: whistleblowing’s enablement, whistleblowers’ protection, the correction of problematic practices, and the recognition of the whistleblower’s action. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This article uses a sample of 3076 employees working in the USA to examine the relationship between the frequency of unethical behavior that employees observe in their organization and their intention to whistleblow. The results confirm the expected curvilinear relationship based on the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct. This relationship is a combination of a diminishing negative relationship between the frequency of observed unethical behavior and the intention to whistleblow internally and a linear positive relationship between the frequency of observed (...) unethical behavior and the intention to whistleblow externally. The beliefs of employees about how supportive their management is when handling whistleblowing reports moderates the relationship between the frequency of unethical behavior employees observe and their intention to whistleblow. (shrink)