The Whistleblowing Guide

CHAPTER 1Introduction: The Importance of Speak‐up Arrangements

SPEAKING UP IN ORGANIZATIONS

Recent years have seen dramatic and fundamental changes in whistleblower procedures for organizations. Prompted by a spate of important public disclosures, organizations are now mandated by law in various countries to implement effective arrangements enabling employees to speak up about perceived wrongdoing. Yet few resources exist to help with this. To fill the gap, this book examines the opportunities and challenges associated with different types of whistleblowing arrangements (often called speak‐up systems), and makes recommendations based on best practice. Our proposed model for the effective development of sustainable speak‐up systems is rigorously grounded in new, empirical, international research, in a variety of organizational settings along with existing academic literature on the issue.

Whistleblowing forms a key means of addressing dangerous wrongdoing and illegal behaviour in today's organizations. The absence of effective speak‐up arrangements prevents organizations and societies from avoiding major disasters. Attempts to alert the authorities to wrongdoing by internal personnel are currently on the increase. However, in many cases, suffering and retaliation experienced by whistleblowers is exacerbated because few if any procedures are in place to receive and follow up on concerns raised by employees. Even when systems are in place, they are often bypassed, and the whistleblower ...