The Whistleblowing Guide Speak-up Arrangements, Challenges and Best Practices

Choose the best speak-up arrangements for your organisation

The last five years have seen dramatic and fundamental changes in whistleblower procedures for organisations. Prompted by a spate of important public disclosures, organizations are now mandated by law to implement effective arrangements enabling employees to speak up about perceived wrongdoing. Currently few resources exist to help with this.

To help fill the gap, The Whistleblowing Guide examines the opportunities and challenges associated with different types of whistleblowing and speak-up arrangements, making recommendations based on best practices you can trust. 

• Identifies the major organisational, structural and cultural obstacles to speaking up through speak-up arrangements
• Proposes effective whistleblowing and speak-up arrangements
• Explains the specific policy and legislation requirements that can promote or impede the effective implementation of speak-up arrangements, and how these can be translated into commercial and public organizations across sectors and cultures
• Makes a clear distinction between internal and external reporting arrangements 

The Whistleblowing Guide offers conceptual clarification about these key issues, including a focus on internal and external speak-up procedures, organisational response and communication, impartiality and trust. 

KATE KENNY is Professor in Business and Society at NUI Galway. She has a Phd from Cambridge University's Judge Business School and has held fellowships at the Edmond J. Safra Lab at Harvard University and Judge Business School. She researched whistleblowing for ten years with projects funded by ESRC, British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust. Her book, Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory, is published by Harvard University Press in 2019.

WIM VANDEKERCKHOVE is Reader in Business Ethics, University of Greenwich Business Faculty, and co-director of the Centre for Research in Employment and Work (CREW). He has published extensively on whistleblowing, socially responsible investment and global ethics and serves as an expert for Transparency International Belgium and the Council of Europe.

MARIANNA FOTAKI is Professor of Business Ethics, Warwick Business School and a Senior Editor for Organization Studies. She has a PhD from London School of Economics and was a Network Fellow at EJ Safra Centre for Ethics, Harvard University (2014-15). She has worked as a medical doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins Du Monde, as advisor to the governments of Armenia, Georgia and Russia, and has co-directed the Centre for Health and the Public Interest (2014-2017).

About the Companion Website vii

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Importance of Speak-up Arrangements 1

Speaking Up in Organizations 1

Speak Up Arrangements: A New Perspective for Theory and Practice 2

Sustainable Speak-up Systems: A Model 3

Rationale 4

Who Should Read This Book? 7

Purpose of the Book 8

About the Authors 9

About the Book 10

Endnotes 11

Chapter 2 Why Speak-up Systems: Why Now? 13

Introduction 13

Background: Why Speak-up Systems, Why Now? 13

Endnotes 37

Chapter 3 A Comparative Study of Speak-up Arrangements in Banking, Engineering, and Healthcare Sectors 41

Introduction 41

Banking 42

Engineering 55

Healthcare 66

Conclusion 76

Endnotes 78

Chapter 4 Challenges and Obstacles to Effective Speak-up Arrangements 83

How Do People Speak Up? 84

Whistleblowing Is a Protracted Process 88

What Expectations Do Speak-ups Entail? 92

Challenges of Operating Speak-up Arrangements 97

Barriers to Responsiveness 106

Strategies for Trustworthiness (and Their Potential Pitfalls) 108

Facilitators of Responsiveness 117

Using Speak-up Data 119

Bringing It All Together: A Model for Developing Sustainable Speak-Up Systems 121

Conclusion 122

Endnotes 123

Chapter 5 Speak-up Procedures: A Guide for Professionals 127

Executive Summary 127

Benefits of Effective Speak-up Arrangements: 128

Recommendations 129

Endnotes 137

Chapter 6 Conclusions 139

Academic Literature 139

Empirical Work 142

A Framework for Understanding Speak-up Arrangements 144

Practical Relevance and Recommendations 146

Endnotes 147

Bibliography 149

Appendix 1 Speak-up Arrangements – Key Theories 163

Appendix 2 Project Methodology 167

Appendix 3 Other Resources 169

Index 171

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