The Fate of Whistleblowers in Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract

What has come to be called ‘whistleblowing’ has grown enormously in the US over recent decades and it is spreading rapidly around the world. The research on which this paper is based develops a sample of whistleblowers from all walks of life and all regions of the US. This article focuses specifically on the treatment of whistleblowers in the non-profit sector. In examining the political meaning of the act of whistleblowing, the author describes whistleblowing as an act of parrhesia. In ancient Greece this was a citizen request to speak freely and frankly. In the case of the whistleblowers, they are moved to speak publicly and candidly, even without permission to do so, in defense of the substantive purposes of the organization that employs them. This study finds that there is little difference in how whistleblowers are treated in the three sectors of our economy. In the majority of cases in this sample, the organizational managers against whom the whistleblowers level claims of wrongdoing, seek quickly to discredit, defame and terminate them. The author’s research does find that most employees in non-profit organizations view their employer as reasonably open to their inputs. Nevertheless, these positive perceptions of the employer are destroyed among those employees who witness what they define as wrongful or illegal conduct on the part of their employer, and particularly where the employee brings their observations of corruption to “higher-ups” in the organization and sees no corrective action take place. The retaliation that too often follows their disclosures of corrupt practices leaves them with a magnified sense of their own integrity, a new political identity, and an indelible sense of distrust toward senior managers and hierarchal organizations in general. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how non-profit organizations could respond in a more constructive way to dissenting viewpoints.

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