Whistle While You Work: Whistleblowing in the Presence of Competing Incentives and Pressures

Abstract

This instructional case connects whistleblowing incentives and ethical issues in different reporting environments. It provides three different whistleblowing scenarios that allow students to identify and grapple with multiple whistleblowing incentives, issues and resultant ethical dilemmas present in both the academic and financial reporting environments. The purpose of the case is threefold. First, the case makes students aware of the whistleblowing incentives and ethical issues present in different environments. Second, by linking academic and financial whistleblowing issues across scenarios, students see the relevance of whistleblowing ethics in their current lives and are motivated to develop ethical habits now. Third, the case forces students to practice making decisions in situations with conflicting incentives, uncertainty and ambiguous guidance. Strong conflicting incentives can cloud and challenge whistleblowing intentions.