Whistleblowing and power: A network perspective

R. Guy Thomas

doi:10.1111/beer.12290

Abstract

AbstractThis article presents a network perspective on whistleblowing. It considers how whistleblowing affects, and is affected by, the preexisting distribution of power inside and outside an organization, where power is conceptualized as deriving from the network positions of the key actors. The article also highlights four characteristic features of whistleblowing: third‐party detriment, local subversion, appeal to central or external power, and reasonable expectation of concern. The feature of local subversion succinctly explains why whistleblowing is difficult. The feature of appeal to central or external power highlights that contrary to the perception of a democratizing phenomenon, whistleblowing tends to redistribute discretion away from local power toward more central power. This suggests a need for caution about institutional measures to promote whistleblowing in contexts where governance is already highly centralized.

Highlights

Much extant commentary on whistleblowing follows any of four main approaches: experiential surveys, psychological studies, legal studies, and ethical studies
The same is probably true in an unstructured network: a higher incidence of whistleblowing reduces the scope for unpublicized malfeasance at nodes of relatively low degree, but increases the power of the more central nodes, to whom whistleblowers choose to make reports precisely because these nodes are already influential. This naturally emergent centralization may be an argument against giving particular officials or types of publications special legal privileges in relation to whistleblowing, and in favor of broad and permissive cultural and legal interpretations which legitimize whistleblowing to a wide range of external powers, not just those already endowed with high centrality
The main contribution of this article is to present a network perspective on whistleblowing. It clarifies the nature of whistleblowing by reference to the network relations between four actors, and four characteristic features of whistleblowing

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Much extant commentary on whistleblowing follows any of four main approaches (which are not mutually exclusive): experiential surveys, psychological studies, legal studies, and ethical studies. All four of the features discussed above—third-party detriment, local subversion, appeal to a person with central or external power, and subjective expectation of concern—need to be present for a disclosure to be characterized as whistleblowing. The same is probably true in an unstructured network: a higher incidence of whistleblowing reduces the scope for unpublicized malfeasance at nodes of relatively low degree, but increases the power of the more central nodes, to whom whistleblowers choose to make reports precisely because these nodes are already influential (the so-called “preferential attachment” in Barabási & Albert, 1999) This naturally emergent centralization may be an argument against giving particular officials or types of publications special legal privileges in relation to whistleblowing, and in favor of broad and permissive cultural and legal interpretations which legitimize whistleblowing to a wide range of external powers, not just those already endowed with high centrality. Whistleblowing with a given range of subversion, say three (that is, reporting to the boss of one's boss's boss) may be perceived differently in cultures with lower and higher Power Distance

| DISCUSSION

| CONCLUSION