The Whistleblowing Guide

CHAPTER 6Conclusions

In writing this book, we set out to accomplish two goals. We wanted to add to the existing academic research by exploring speak‐up arrangements from the perspective of those that implement and operate them, and we wanted to provide practical advice for practitioners by making recommendations on best practice that emerged from the research. In this chapter, we will summarize our contributions in both of these areas. First, we return to the existing literature on whistleblowing, speak‐up arrangements, as well as wider themes in organization studies and employee voice to highlight how this book has added to knowledge in these areas. Second, we review our empirical work, and revisit what we now know about speak‐up arrangements. Third, we examine the framework we propose for understanding speak‐up arrangements. This framework includes the themes of independence, responsiveness and time, and best practices to overcome challenges in these areas, which includes building trust, fostering an ethical culture in organizations, and learning from speak‐up data. Finally, we re‐iterate the practical relevance of the research, reviewing the recommendations for mangers and speak‐up operators, providing a holistic understanding of speak‐up arrangements in theory and practice. We begin with a review of the academic literature.

ACADEMIC LITERATURE

In Chapter 2 we discussed the issue of retaliation, which is a big risk for whistleblowers despite the fact that whistleblower protection ...