Deciding to blow the whistle

Abstract

The act of blowing the whistle on wrongdoing is essential to good government, yet it poses an ethical dilemma to the individual, the organization and society. Using a mixed methods approach, the aim of this dissertation is to examine the individual and organizational factors that facilitate or impede whistleblowing in the US federal government. A logistic regression analysis of survey data collected by the Merit Systems Protection Board, covering 36,926 federal employees from 24 agencies, is employed to examine various individual and organizational factors empirically. In addition, qualitative data from 18 original in-depth interviews with federal whistleblowers were gathered to provide a better understanding of the influences involved in the decision about whether or not to blow the whistle. Findings from the quantitative analysis suggest that, although whistleblowing is a rare event within most federal agencies, its likelihood is positively associated with norm-based and affective work motives, but negatively associated with job satisfaction and several key indicators of organizational culture, including perceptions of respect and openness, cooperativeness and flexibility in the work setting, and fair treatment and trust in the supervisor. The qualitative interview findings revealed similar themes but also suggested additional, more detailed explanations of why public employees blow the whistle in the federal government. Specifically, when asked about the factors associated with their whistleblowing, interviewees frequently mentioned intrinsic individual motives linked to their personal upbringing and values and their commitment to serving the larger public. They also pointed to the existence of a maladapted and unethical work environment that ignored or covered up wrongdoing and threatened to punish whistleblowers. This indicates intrinsic individual motives, particularly those associated with norm-based and affective work motivations, along with perceptions of the existence of an unethical work environment and organizational culture, should be taken into account when developing and sustaining policies to promote ethical behavior and responsible public service in the federal government.

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