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Whistleblowing and Information Ethics

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Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics
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Synonyms

Raising a concern; Reporting wrongdoing; Speak-up

Definition

Whistleblowing is “the disclosure by organization members of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action” (Near and Miceli 1985). Whistleblowing is currently also referred to as speak-up, reporting wrongdoing, or raising a concern.

Information ethics (IE) is an ethical framework that “evaluates the duty of any moral agent in terms of contribution to the growth of the infosphere […] and any process, action or event that negatively affects the whole infosphere – not just an informational entity – as an increase in its level of entropy and hence an instance of evil” (Floridi 2008).

Whistleblowing at Three-Tiers

Research into whistleblowing that distinguishes between internal and external whistleblowing has mainly assumed whistleblowing is a one-off decision and action. Hence, upon perceiving a situation as wrongdoing...

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References

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Correspondence to Wim Vandekerckhove .

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Vandekerckhove, W. (2020). Whistleblowing and Information Ethics. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1127-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1127-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

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