Gerald Vinten: A Remembrance

Abstract

Gerald Vinten served on the Editorial Advisory Board of this journal from 1995, its second year of publication, until his death in July 2008. The founding editor, Bob Tricker, brought Gerald on in an advisory capacity, and Professor Vinten provided value and expertise to all three of its editors. His dominant academic interest was internal audit. Notably, he was the founding editor of the Managerial Auditing Journal, which is currently on its 23rd year of operation. During his career, he published over 300 articles dealing with optimal accountability in business and government. His career included appointments at the Cass Business School, Southampton Business School, the Open University, and the European Business School. His doctoral students, whom he guided through the inevitable intricacies and heartaches, became friends for life. His 1987 textbook, Internal Audit, coauthored with Chambers and Selim, became a classic as it was viewed as authoritative and became widely used. In his later years, he focused more specifically on business ethics and, in particular, on whistle-blowing. In his 1994 edited book entitled Whistleblowing – Subversion or Corporate Citizenship, he characterized this phenomenon as follows: … informing on illegal and unethical practices in the workplace, is becoming increasingly common as staff speak out about their ethical concerns at work. It can have tragic consequences to the individual, as well as threatening the survival of the organization. It is, therefore, an issue of interest to managers, students of business and management, and employees. As suggested above, he not only helped describe and explain whistle-blowing but also succinctly identified the difficult time that whistle-blowers might have and how these difficulties ultimately hurt corporate accountability. For example, he stated that Whistleblowers may never have it easy. Career mortality and occupational morbidity should be maintained at the lowest possible level. How well a society or organization treats its valid whistleblowers may be taken as an indication of how genuinely ethical and civilized they are. One can but hope that we will perform better in the twenty-first century than we did in the twentieth century. Society owes an immense debt of gratitude to its whistleblowers. Is it not time to express this, rather than wait to record it in an obituary as our whistleblowing martyrs are forced into early graves? These words are powerful in light of the growing financial scandals that seem to cascade daily during this global financial meltdown. He was a rare scholar who transcended disciplinary boundaries and brought a passion to his scholarship and editorial duties. Gerald Vinten was an occasional contributor and a regular reviewer for this journal. He was the sort of reviewer who took a personal interest in the research and writing of others. Over the years, many contributors, benefiting from the advice and supportive comments of “an anonymous reviewer,” were the recipients of his wise counsel and detailed feedback. He will be sadly missed by those in academia and the professions, by students and authors, by his family and friends, and by all those who believe that speaking out is sometimes the only course of action despite any personal cost involved. Indeed, our journal has lost a valuable reviewer and member of its advisory board. Bob Tricker Former Editor, 1994–1999 Chris Mallin Former Editor, 2000–2007 Bill Judge Current Editor, 2007–Present