Abstract
There is an increasing recognition of the need to provide ways for people to raise concerns about suspected wrongdoing by promoting internal policies and procedures which offer proper safeguards to actual and potential whistleblowers. Many organisations in both the public and private sectors now have such measures and these display a wide variety of operating modalities: in-house or outsourced, anonymous/confidential/identified, multi or single tiered, specified or open subject matter, etc. As a result of this development, a number of guidelines and policy documents have been produced by authoritative bodies. This article reviews the following five documents from a management perspective, the first two deal with the principles upon which legislation might be based and the others describing good management practice: the Council of Europe Resolution 1729 (COER); Transparency International ‘Recommended Principles for Whistleblowing Legislation’ (TI); European Union Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Opinion (EUWP); International Chamber of Commerce ‘Guidelines on Whistleblowing’ (ICC); and the British Standards Institute ‘Whistleblowing arrangements Code of Practice 2008 (BSI).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Para 6.1 recommends that a review should consider the following four elements: “(i) Ensure that staff are aware of and trust the whistleblowing avenues;(ii) Make provision for realistic advice about what the whistleblowing process means for openness, confidentiality and anonymity;(iii) Continually review how the procedures work in practice;(iv) Regular communication to staff about the avenues open to them.”
Between October 1987 and October 2010 the rewards actually paid to whistleblowers under this legislation amounted to $2.877 billion.
For example, Principle 4: “Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date” and Principle 5: “Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or purposes”.
Arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable behaviour may undermine the common law implied duty of trust and confidence found in contracts of employment.
BSI refers to the training of senior managers and advocates that workers should be briefed by line managers when the policy is introduced or changed. By way of contrast, the Institute of Chartered Accountants acknowledges the need to educate staff about the whistleblowing policy and train them how to raise and handle concerns (ICA 2004).
BSI proposes two internal levels as alternatives. “At the second tier, it might be one or more trusted individuals, the key specialist functions, or divisional or regional managers. At the top level, it could be an internal hotline or the Finance Director, the Group lawyer and/or a non-executive Director.” By way of contrast, Bowers et al. (2007) suggests a separate dedicated unit as an alternative to line managers.
Although the BSI is of the view that time limits are unlikely to be appropriate, some employers find it helpful to have time estimates for each stage of the procedure.
References
ACAS. (2009). Code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures. Norwich: TSO.
Bowers, J., Fodder, M., Lewis, J., & Mitchell, J. (2007). Whistleblowing: Law and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, A. (Ed.). (2008). Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector. Canberra: ANU E Press. Accessed April 6, 2009, from http://epress.anu.edu.au/anzsog/whistleblowing/pdf_instructions.html.
Brown, A., & Olsen, J. (2008). Internal witness support: The unmet challenge. In A. Brown (Ed.), Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector. Canberra: ANU E Press.
Brown, A., & Wheeler, C. (2008). Project findings: An agenda for action. In A. Brown (Ed.), Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector. Canberra: ANU E Press.
BSI. (2008). PAS 1998:2008 whistleblowing arrangements. Code of practice. London: British Standards Institute.
Carr, I., & Lewis, D. (2010). Combating corruption through employment law and whistleblower protection. Industrial Law Journal, 39(1), 1–30.
Carson, T., Verdu, M., & Wokutch, R. (2008). Whistle-blowing for profit: An ethical analysis of the Federal False Claims Act. Journal of Business Ethics, 77(3), 361–376.
COER. (2010). The Council of Europe Resolution 1729 entitled “The protection of whistleblowers” was passed on 29th April 2010 (accompanies Recommendation 1916 which has the same name). Accessed June 6, 2010, from http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta10/EREC1916.htm and http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta10/ERES1729.htm.
EUWP. (2006). Opinion 1/2006 on the application of EU data protection rules to international whistleblowing schemes in the fields of accounting, internal accounting controls, auditing matters, fight against bribery, banking and financial crime. Document WP117-00195/06/EN. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party.
Hassink, H., de Vries, M., & Bollen, L. (2007). A content analysis of whistleblowing policies of leading European companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 75, 25–44.
ICA. (2004). Guidance for audit committees on whistleblowing arrangements. London: Institute of Chartered Accountants.
ICC 2008. ICC guidelines on whistleblowing. Paris: International Chamber of Commerce. Accessed April 7, 2009, from http://www.iccwbo.org/policy/anticorruption/iccccfee/index.html.
Jauch, L. R., Osborn, R. N., & Martin, T. N. (1980). Structured content analysis of cases: A complementary method for organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 5(4), 517–525.
Kaptein, M. (2002). Guidelines for the development of an ethics safety net. Journal of Business Ethics, 41(3), 217–234.
Keenan, J. P. (1995). Whistleblowing and the first-level manager: determinants of feeling obliged to blow the whistle. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10(3), 571–584.
Keenan, J. P. (2007). Comparing Chinese and American managers on whistleblowing. Employee Rights and Responsibilities Journal, 19(2), 85–94.
Larsson, R. (1993). Case survey methodology: quantitative analysis of patterns across case studies. The Academy of Management Journal, 36(6), 1515–1546.
Lewis, D. (2006). The contents of whistleblowing/confidential reporting procedures in the UK: Some lessons from empirical research. Employee Relations, 28(1), 76–86.
Lewis, D. & Kender, M. (2007). A survey of whistleblowing/confidential reporting procedures in the top 250 FTSE firms. Report published by the Centre for Legal Research. London: Middlesex University.
Lewis, D. & Kender, M. (2010). A survey of whistleblowing/confidential reporting procedures in the top 250 FTSE firms. London: SAI Global.
MacNab, B., Brislin, R., Worthley, R., Galperin, B. L., Jenner, S., Lituchy, T. R., et al. (2007). Culture and ethics management: Whistle-blowing and internal reporting within a NAFTA country context. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 7(1), 5–28.
Miceli, M. P., & Near, J. P. (1992). Blowing the whistle: The organizational and legal implications for companies and employees. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Miceli, M. P., Near, J. P., & Dworkin, T. M. (2008). Whistle-blowing in organizations. New York: Routledge.
Ministry of Justice. (2011). The Bribery Act 2010. Guidance. London: Ministry of Justice. Accessed July 6, 2011, from www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/bribery.htm).
Park, H., Blenkinsopp, J., Oktem, M. K., & Omurgonulsen, U. (2008). Cultural orientation and attitudes toward different forms of whistleblowing: A comparison of South Korea, Turkey, and the U.K. Journal of Business Ethics, 82(4), 929–939.
Roberts, P. (2008). Evaluating agency responses: comprehensiveness and the impact of whistleblowing procedures. In A. Brown (Ed.), Whistleblowing in the Australian public sector. Canberra: ANU E Press.
Rothschild, J., & Miethe, T. (1999). Disclosing misconduct in work organizations: An empirical analysis of the situational factors that foster whistleblowing. In I. Harper & R. L. Simpson (Eds.), Research in the sociology of work (Vol. 8). Ohio: JAI Press.
Skivenes, M., & Trygstad, S. C. (2010). When whistle-blowing works: The Norwegian case. Human Relations, 63(7), 1071–1097.
TI. (2009). Recommended draft principles for whistleblowing legislation. Berlin: Transparency International. Accessed March 11, 2010, from http://www.transparency.org/global_priorities/other_thematic_issues/towards_greater_protection_of_whistleblowers/enhancing_whistleblower_protection_in_the_european_union.
Tsahuridu, E., & Vandekerckhove, W. (2008). Organisational whistleblowing policies: Making employees responsible or liable? Journal of Business Ethics, 82(1), 107–118.
Vandekerckhove, W. (2006). Whistleblowing and organizational social responsibility. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Vandekerckhove, W. (2010a). Whistleblowing. Perennial issues and ethical risks. In G. Aras & D. Crowther (Eds.), Handbook of corporate governance and social responsibility. Farnham: Gower.
Vandekerckhove, W. (2010b). European whistleblowing policies: Tiers or tears? In D. Lewis (Ed.), A global approach to public interest disclosure: What can we learn from existing whistleblowing legislation and research?. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Vandekerckhove, W., & Tsahuridu, E. (2010). Risky rescues and the duty to blow the whistle. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(3), 362–380.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Muel Kaptein and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this article, as well as the participants at the BAM HR meeting 2010, the WERU seminar July 2010 at the University of Greenwich, and the EBEN Research Conference 2011 where previous versions of this article were presented.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vandekerckhove, W., Lewis, D. The Content of Whistleblowing Procedures: A Critical Review of Recent Official Guidelines. J Bus Ethics 108, 253–264 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1089-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1089-1