Should you 'whistle while you work'?

Whistle blowing creates headlines and controversy. Recently, a Wal-Mart director resigned and a vice president was fired amid allegations of financial improprieties. The former vice president claims that Wal-Mart retaliated against him for reporting the former director’s misdeeds. Wal-Mart contends that the vice president was fired for not being truthful during the company’s investigation of the former director’s use of company funds.

This case typifies the claims and counterclaims that commonly surround whistle blowing.

An employee becomes a whistle-blower when she publicly discloses what she perceives to be her employer’s illegal or unethical business practices. While the employee may consider her disclosure to be a public service, the employer is more likely to characterize it as a disloyal act.

In a sense, the employer is correct. Revealing company information that the employer wants kept private is disloyal. The issue is whether the disclosure is morally justified. Loyalty to an employer is important, but loyalty ceases to be a virtue when it is used to excuse or conceal unethical or illegal business practices.

To ensure that a disclosure can be morally justified, an employee should go through a thoughtful evaluation process before blowing the whistle. First, the employee should carefully evaluate the evidence of wrongdoing as to its accuracy, fairness and persuasiveness. Would any reasonable person, after reviewing the evidence, come to the conclusion that unethical or illegal conduct has occurred?

Second, does the perceived wrongdoing threaten the public welfare? Whistle blowing should be undertaken to protect the public from imminent, substantial physical or financial harm.

Third, the company’s ability and willingness to address allegations of wrongdoing internally should be evaluated. If the company’s leadership encourages internal reporting, and effectively responds to allegations of unethical or illegal conduct, the internal process should be used. The company’s leadership can be trusted to make the appropriate public disclosure.

Fourth, the potential whistleblower should evaluate whether the failure to make a public disclosure would make the employee legally, or morally, complicit in the wrongdoing.

In his book, “The City of God,” Saint Aquinas states, “The silence of good men makes them complicit in wrongdoing.”

The avoidance of complicity strongly supports the moral justification for whistle blowing.

Whistle-blowers are often targets of abuse. Termination of employment is common. More subtle means of retaliation include lack of advancement, poor job assignments and ostracism at work in hopes that the whistle-blower will quit.

Until recently, an abused whistle-blower could only file a wrongful termination lawsuit against his employer. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, however, provides whistle-blowers with additional protection. Companies and individuals that retaliate against whistle-blowers are subject to new civil and criminal penalties.

Regardless of any legal protection or moral justification, employees do not want to be whistle-blowers. Whistle blowing damages the company, the whistle-blower, co-workers and other stakeholders.

A company can make whistle blowing unnecessary by creating a culture in which employees are free to voice their concerns, confident that the leadership will respond appropriately.

John D. Copeland, J.D., LL.M., Ed.D., is an executive in residence at the Donald G. Soderquist Center for Business Leadership and Ethics and professor of business at John Brown University in Arkansas.