Whistle Blowing in Organizations

Whistle Blowing in Organizations Name: Institution: Whistle Blowing in Organizations Whistle blowing refers to when an employee in an organization exposes wrongdoing by the corporate to the public, internal, or external authorities. Whistle-blowers are usually people or employees with enough knowledge about the organization’s undertakings and are keen to raise any illegal or dangerous practices in their companies. They can choose to disclose the organization’s illegal activities either internally by reporting to the leaders or other employees within the company or externally by disclosing the information to a third party such as the media. Whistle-blowers always face harsh consequences as their actions can lead to demotion, suspensions, termination of work, harassment or discrimination by the other employees or leaders within the company. Currently, there are increasing cases of whistle blowing in many organizations all over the world. This paper will look at the factors that contribute to employees becoming whistle-blowers and how a corporate leader can develop policies, procedures, and culture to provide proactive mechanisms to avoid the need for whistle blowing. Since the 1980s, there is increasing body of law that provides protection to the whistle-blowers on dangerous or illegal practices by their organizations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Reform Act 2002 offers whistle-blowers with protection from discharge, demotion, and harassment among others, the law also developed penalties where leaders who retaliated against whistle-blowers could serve up to ten years in jail. Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires all organizations to come up with written policies and procedures that allow whistle-blowers complaints to be handled without fear of reprisal (Renee, 2016). In addition, failure to act upon the complaints of the whistle-blower can result in costly litigation. For instance, the case of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), where the assistant plant manager, Kenneth Kendrick, ‘repeatedly reported to Texas Department of health a leaking roof that allowed rainwater contaminated with dirt and feces of birds to fall on the peanut causing sickness and deaths of people.’ The department initially ignored his allegations but later found out they were true. Consequently, PCA went bankrupt and resulted in the loss of jobs including that of Kenneth (Katz, LaVan, & Lopez, 2012). Many factors contribute to whistle blowing in organizations including job satisfaction to the employees. Organizations that do not have a good working culture with their staff are likely to have whistle-blowers in the company. When the welfare of an employee comes last in any organization, then there is trouble. Employees will resort to whistle blowing when they feel that they do not have freedom of expression and face constant threats of losing their jobs by the executives if they make slight mistakes. Such threats lead to job insecurity and in turn lead to job dissatisfaction. Management should ensure ethical conducts that result in creating a trustworthy environment and fair treatment within the organization. In so doing, the workers would not resort to whistle blowing if they know that their...