Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty debate: What would be the ...

[Mimi]

Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty debate:
 
  What would be the main claim and supporting arguments here?

Question 2

Avoiding the Tragedy of Whistleblowing
 
  What would be the main claim and supporting arguments here?

[Missbam101]

Answer to Question 1

Whistleblowing is consistent with loyalty to one's employer and does not necessarily involve betraying an employer's interests. (Note: Larmer attempts to establish his conclusion by arguing that two widely accepted accounts of the relation between whistleblowing and employee loyalty are mistaken. He then attempts to offer a superior alternative account of the relation between whistleblowing and employee loyalty.

Answer to Question 2

Organizations ought to be concerned with finding ways in which the problems which lead to whistleblowing can be addressed without the necessity of whistleblowing. This would enable them to get the benefits associated with whistleblowing without suffering its inevitable costs. We should try to get the benefits of whistleblowing without making people and organizations pay the enormous price whistleblowing typically exacts.

Note: Arguments 1 and 2 are intended to establish that there are inevitably serious costs associated with whistleblowing. Argument 3 is intended to demonstrate that the problems which generate whistleblowing cannot be ignored.

• The rationality of formal organization is an ideal never more than partially achieved. There exists a tendency, even though it may not be rational, to blame the bearer of bad news. Inasmuch as whistleblowing generally points to something wrong in both formal and informal structures of the organization, there is a tendency to blame and punish the whistleblower.


• Whistleblowing generates a feeling of betrayal on the part of the whistleblower. Before the whistleblower was forced to blow the whistle, she trusted the formal organization. She took its good sense for granted. That is no longer possible.


• In the long run at least, peace between the whistleblower and the organization is as good for the organization as for the whistleblower. The whistleblower is not really an enemy. An organization that has whistleblowers needs them. ... An organization that punishes its whistleblowers blinds itself to troubles better faced.