Within businesses, it is very essential that individuals are held to a high standard. For this reason, poor and shady practices should not be legal. Now sometimes, there are instances in which shady practices end up going unnoticed by the employer and employee. At the same time, though, there are instances in which people discover and call out the illegal practices that they witness other employees doing. This is known as whistleblowing. Now, in some cases, whistleblowing be being a tattletale. However, if it is affecting the company, then it needs to be called out.
As Bolsin, Faunce, & Oakley (2005) state about whistleblowing, “Whistleblowers, whose complaints are reasonable, made in good faith, in the public interest, and not vexatious, we argue, are practicing those obligations of professional conscience foundational to virtue based medical ethics.” (p.614). This is what defines whether someone is correct in exposing an illegal action within a business. Now, while whistleblowing can be common in certain businesses, there are also many examples of this. Through a specific example of whistleblowing, it is essential to analyze it and see whether the employee was justified in their actions or not.
Within a company called “The National City of Professional Engineers”, an instance occurred, in which an employee was tampering with the capacity of plants and beddings, to avoid rain overflow. However, the problem with this situation, is that the employee did not inform anyone that they wanted to take extra measures to avoid rain overflow. Another employee discovered this situation, and they ended up informing the city officials about the issue. In this scenario, the employee who discovered this incident was right in reporting it. The reason, is because if something happened to the company, the witness would hold the responsibility of not telling the higher officials. As Bouville (2007) states, “What is the difference between someone who knew of wrongdoing and said nothing and someone who did not know of the wrongdoing but who would not have said anything either had he known? The difference is circumstances” (p.11). This perfectly describes the case involving the National City of Engineers. Now, in relation to this case, it is also essential to look at how the employee’s actions would have affected the company overall.
When working with plants and bedding, it is important to follow instructions. If not, there can be consequences. One example of this would be a loss of plant life from careless actions. Thus, the company would end up wasting not only expenses on plants that are now perishing, but they would also have to spend money on new plants as well. These are some examples of what would have happened if the employee tampering with the plants continued to go about their actions. For this reason, the whistleblower was correct in letting the higher officials know what was going on. Moreover, this also demonstrates a sense of morality as well. As Bouville (2007) states, “Blame is the characteristic reaction of the morality system, but if one wishes to blame based on immorality, it is more important to do so, than remain silent on a relevant issue” (p.5).
In closing, with whistleblowing comes a sense of morality and responsibility. Moreover, an employee who is planning to inform officials about an illegal action should ask themselves two essential questions. The first should be what will their conduct and morality look like if they do not report a serious incident. And the second question should be what kind of ways that an employee action will affect a company.
Work Cited
Bolsin, S. Faunce, T., & Oakley, J., 2005. “Practical virtue ethics: healthcare whistleblowing and portable digital technology”. Teaching and Learning Ethics, 31(1), 612-618.
Bouville, M. 2007. “Whistleblowing and Morality”. Journal of Business Ethics, 1(1) 1-11
