Effective-Whistle Blowing

Whistle-blowing is often assumed to benefit society at large—whether from the view of 60 Minutes or from that of the members of the nearly 40 state legislatures that have passed statutes to protect whistle-blowers. Yet empirical research on conditions that lead whistle-blowers to be effective in getting organizational wrongdoing stopped is woefully absent. Encouraging whistle-blowing is inappropriate unless a person knows something about those variables that increase the likelihood that whistle-blowing will be effective. We present a model of effective whistle-blowing, from which we derive a set of propositions, based on theory and preliminary research in the area. It is hoped that this model will provide a research agenda for exploring a question of obvious importance practically as well as theoretically.