Whistle-Blowers
How Much We Can Learn From Them Depends on How Much We Can Give Up
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3757844 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C F Alford (0000-0002-9948-2454, University of Maryland, College Park, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 264-277 |
| Publication date | 1999-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00027649921955254 |
| OpenAlex | W2156649712 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 9 |
Based on intensive interviews with several dozen whistle-blowers, this article asks what they have to teach about the organizations in which they worked. The most important thing they have to teach is that organizations are deeply threatened by what Kant called ethical autonomy (Mündigkeit). Organizational life is dedicated to the destruction of ethical autonomy for much the same reason that Freud saw social life as dedicated to the suppression of sex and aggression. Ethical autonomy threatens to explode the organization. This may not in fact be the case, but most organizations act as if they believe it. The purpose of sacrificing the whistle-blower is to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic of ethical and moral responsibility that threatens to engulf the organization in a competitive world
Aggression · Autonomy · Criminology · Dozen · Environmental ethics · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Ethics in Business and Education · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Ethics as Critical Practice
The anatomy of leaks Tracing the path of unauthorized disclosure in the Israeli press
Contestation in artificial intelligence as a practice
Resistance Will Be Futile? The Stigmatization (or Not) of Whistleblowers
Governing by protection
Public Management Policy and Practice in Western China
The Squeaky Wheel Approach to Teaching Ethics
Whistleblower Memoirs
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,36 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2025 (22) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |