In the modern day setting, wrongdoing has become synonymous with the operations of various multinational corporations. With some individuals within and outside such organizations still conscious regarding ethics, whistle-blowing or dissent has increasingly become frequent. A context affected by this scenario is the United States’ collegiate sport. Whistle-blowing here has become common due to the feeling that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is very ineffective in its mandate. This paper argues that the feminist standpoint theory and the perspective that takes into account the input of external stakeholders are essential in characterizing dissent in this context.
External stakeholders
According to Richardson & McGlynn (2011), the flouting of rules is a common occurrence in many athletic departments in the American colleges. The main reason behind this occurrence is the fact that college athletics is under intense pressure to perform such that stakeholders opt to engage in cheating. This has led to the rise of many cases of whistle-blowing, with individuals with various connections with the colleges seeking to expose these practices. In doing so, however, the perspective of how dissent is affected by the stakeholders outside the college has been ignored by the scholarly world (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011).
This perspective argues that parties outside the American colleges highly influence dissent in this particular setting. Despite the fact that many studies have looked into this form of dissent, there is a gap of knowledge regarding the impact that industry characteristics have to whistle-blowing especially in the United States’ collegiate sport. According to Richardson & McGlynn (2011), the survival of any organization is dependent on the activities within and outside the organization. To this end, there are some external forces that contribute to the success of an organization. In the United States’ collegiate sport, for instance, the external actors have a perceived control over their teams. This perception motivates them to get involved once whistle-blowers arise.
The first category of external actors with an impact to dissent is highly identified fans. With sport identified as a highly emotional activity, fans often develop very emotional ties with the teams they support. When a whistleblower, therefore, targets the team, some fans may interpret this as a personal attack. To this end, students, alumni, and other groups may result in retaliation to the whistleblower. The retaliation of the fans, therefore, is a factor that heavily influences dissent in this context. The next category of external actors who have an impact on dissent is closely tied stakeholders such as the media and organizations such as NCAA. To this end, these stakeholders may act as forces that support or oppose whistle blowing
The feminist standpoint theory
The feminist standpoint theory is critical in analyzing dissent in the United States’ collegiate sport due to the fact that support has historically been a victim of gender inequality. Sporting organizations are some of the highly gendered organizations, by rooting for the adoption of masculine structures of mind and even communication styles (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011).
The hyper-masculinity aspect of this context duly affects dissent in this particular setting, with whistleblowers facing retaliation from two perspectives under this theory. First is sexualized retaliation, whereby critics of the whistleblowers use the sexuality of the latter to discredit any claims made. According to Richardson & McGlynn (2011), sexualized retaliation is geared towards the portrayal of whistleblowers as irrational and even hysterical, thus discrediting their accusations. Here such individuals are removed from positions which are linked to the athletic departments of the colleges. This prevents them from having exposure to any wrongdoing. In other cases, female whistleblowers are placed under the authority of other women who agree with institutional standards. This is aimed at making the claims against the athletic departments appear lighter.
Reference
Richardson, B. K., & McGlynn, J. (2011). Rabid Fans, Death Threats, and Dysfunctional Stakeholders: The Influence of Organizational and Industry Contexts on Whistle-Blowing Cases. Management Communication Quarterly 25(1), 121-150.
