Whistleblowing in Organizations: A Logit analysis of Litigated Cases

Abstract

This study examines the issue of whistleblowing in organizations. As suggested by the literature, a variety of legal protections and issues were examined to predict case outcomes in future litigation by individuals who engage in the act of whistleblowing. We used chi square analyses and a logit model to predict when an individual plaintiff would prevail, and the results indicate that case characteristics including discrimination laws, safety behavior, sexual harassment, and refusal to participate in illegal activities are significant predictors. The odds of a finding in favor of the employee increase with the presence of these particular case characteristics. Our examination uses litigated cases as the source of data, which allows for a rich analysis of occurrences relating to whistleblowing in a large number of organizations. The results of this study suggest that individuals increase their chances for successful litigation when these specific issues of discrimination laws, safety behavior, sexual harassment, and refusal to participate in illegal activities are involved in the whistleblowing occurrence.Since the early years of the first decade of the 21st century, there have been a number of whistleblowing cases that have generated a great deal of publicity and

Omertà in intragroup cheating: The role of ingroup identity in dishonesty and whistleblowing

“…Other recent sociopsychological research has explicitly cast the decision to blow the whistle in moral terms: that people are motivated to blow the whistle—or to not—by concerns for the well-being of specific others (Cailleba & Petit, 2018; Dungan et al, 2019; Lindblom, 2007; Lopez et al, 2014; Miceli et al, 2009; O’Sullivan & Ngau, 2014; Sekerka & Bagozzi, 2007; Watts & Buckley, 2017). In particular, these scholars have focused on two moral principles: fairness, or the requirement for equal treatment, and loyalty, or the preferential treatment of special groups (Dungan et al, 2015; Uys & Senekal, 2008).…”