Business Ethics, 2nd Edition

Chapter Eighteen

Whistle-Blowing

INTRODUCTION

If there is anything or any act or behaviour of an employee that has evoked either strong endorsement or condemnation in equal measure, it is what has come to be known as “Whistle blowing.” We could cite the following two quotes in support of this assertion. James Roche, the former president of General Motors once observed: “Some critics are now busy eroding another support of free enterprise—the loyalty of a management team with its unifying values and cooperative work. Some of the enemies of business now encourage an employee to be disloyal to the enterprise. They want to create suspicion and disharmony and pry into the proprietary interests of the business. However, this is labeled—industrial espionage, ...