In the previous chapter, we used empirical research to highlight some of the best practices that organizations use to implement speak‐up arrangements. The organizations were from various sectors, and had some similarities and some differences in how they approached this. It emerged from these findings that effective speak‐up processes are a collective endeavor, requiring support for employees that want to speak up and an organizational culture that is conducive to such reports. In this chapter, we discuss how people speak up, and what some of the barriers to speak‐up arrangements are.

In the previous chapter we showed how the organizations we studied used combinations of speak‐up channels with different interfaces. In this chapter we discuss the challenges and obstacles faced by those who operated these speak‐up arrangements. We first present research findings on how people speak‐up and how many times they do so. Next, we discuss what people who speak up expect from those they address their concern to. We then switch perspectives to those who must meet the expectations of whistleblowers—who receive their concerns and operate speak‐up arrangements—and delve into the challenges of obtaining and maintaining trust throughout the process. Toward the end of the chapter we introduce our model for developing sustainable speak up systems, which draws on these empirical insights along with best practice from existing research.

HOW DO PEOPLE SPEAK UP?

As discussed in Chapter 2, research into who whistleblowers turn to with their concerns has predominantly used an internal/external dichotomy with little or no differentiation within these categories. One exception is the study by Kaptein,¹ which measured the impact of organizational culture on how people raise a concern about wrongdoing, differentiating between inaction, confronting the wrongdoer, reporting to management, calling an internal hotline, and external whistleblowing. Kaptein's Corporate Ethical Virtue model (CEV model) covers seven aspects that encourage ‘ethical conduct’—structures, policies and behaviours that stimulate organization members to behave in an ethical manner. The CEV model articulates these aspects as seven organizational virtues: clarity, congruency, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability and sanctionability.

Clarity refers to the extent that organizations reduce vagueness and ambiguity about what is expected behaviour. The more employees are left to their own intuition, the less clear the organization is, and the higher the risk of unethical conduct.

Congruency refers to the extent that management behaviour is in line with the expectations formulated towards employees—in other words, management by example. In a study using the CEV model for researching whistleblowing, Kaptein² distinguished between congruency of local management and senior management. In the context of whistleblowing, this is an obvious distinction. Whistleblowing cases often involve an employee reporting perceived misconduct by local management to senior management. What Kaptein³ wanted to find out was to whom employees were more likely to report depending on how local and senior management scored on congruency. If local management scored low on value congruency but senior management scored high, one would expect employees to report to senior management. But if both scored low, would employees be more likely to blow the whistle outside of their organization or would they prefer to remain silent?

The organizational virtue of feasibility refers to how employees feel enabled to fulfil their responsibilities through the provision of time, budgets, equipment, information, etc. Supportability refers to the extent to which organizations stimulate employees' identification with the ethics of the organization. It does not measure commitment to the organization, but only the extent to which they support the ethics of the organization, for example through codes of conduct and ethics training. The underlying proposition is that a high level of identification with the ethics of the organization will result in an intrinsic motivation to comply with the ethical standards of the organization.

Another dimension of ethical culture is transparency. More precisely internal transparency as the extent to which wrongdoing and its impact would be easily visible to members of the organization—those who could raise concern about it as well as those who can act upon it internally, both employees and managers. The virtue of discussability refers to the extent to which ethical dilemmas or concerns can be discussed internally. Organizations that have a ‘code of silence’ would score very low on this. The proposition here is that in organizations with low discussability, speaking up is perceived as undesirable, and more effort will be put into retaliating against the messenger than into resolving the malpractice. Finally, the organizational virtue of sanctionability refers to the extent to which unethical behaviour is negatively sanctioned and ethical behaviour is positively sanctioned.

Kaptein⁴ used this CEV model to see whether these organizational virtues stimulating ethical conduct would make a difference on what individuals intended to do if they saw misconduct in their workplace. Would they remain silent? Would they raise it directly with the wrongdoer? With their manager? Would they call the hotline, or go to top management? Or would they skip all internal routes and blow the whistle outside at once? (See Box 4.1.)

The findings are interesting because they point out that organizations cannot simply rely on great cultures to make internal whistleblowing work. Most, but not all, aspects of the CEV model point to employee preferences not to remain silent, and not to blow the whistle outside. Clarity, discussability, and sanctionability do what we expect them to do. The clearer tasks and responsibilities are within an organization, the more employees are willing to confront a perceived wrongdoer directly or raise the concern with management, and the less likely it is they will remain silent or blow the whistle outside of the organization. The same goes for organizations in which employees feel concerns are discussed openly, and management is seen to sanction wrongdoers. Also, the more an organization tries to get its employees to identify with the official ethical standards, the more they are likely to discuss issues openly or raise them with management. They are also less likely to remain silent. However, an interesting finding is that supportability does not seem to have an impact on external whistleblowing. People are just as likely to go outside, whether you have ethics trainings and codes in place or not. These findings are illustrated in Table 4.1.

Other unexpected findings relate to the organizational virtues of congruency, feasibility, and transparency. Kaptein⁷ found that a high level of congruency—when management is seen to act according to the ethical standards they preach—indicates that employees are less likely to discuss a concern directly with the wrongdoer. A suggested reason for this is that employees who see their management as behaving with integrity will regard them as role models. Hence, they will expect management to step in rather than directly confront wrongdoers themselves. An odd finding that complicates matters somewhat is that a high level of congruency of senior management did not lead to an intention to report concerns to senior management. Rather, it makes it more likely the employee will either use the internal hotline, or actually blow the whistle outside of the organization.

We can see this too where organizations score high on feasibility. Employees that have all the resources they require to do their jobs express more intention to blow the whistle externally. And in organizations that have a lot of internal transparency, employees express less intention to directly confront a wrongdoer or report to manager. It seems they are more likely to either remain silent or blow the whistle outside. There is a similar rationale to this. A lot of internal transparency means everyone knows who decides what, and where what happens comes from. Hence, if anyone notices any wrongdoing, then surely all the others—including management—can see it happening too. Rather than feeling an urge of responsibility, employees start wondering why no one else is raising this. Thus, they either remain silent or blow the whistle outside.

Kaptein's research shows that even ethical organizations need whistleblowing policies, precisely because some of their ethical virtues will lead employees either to remain silent—potentially losing their commitment—or to blow the whistle outside. Kaptein's findings do not suggest organizations should neglect congruency, feasibility or internal transparency; these are very important virtues to work on in an organization. What they do suggest is that high levels of these virtues will not lead employees automatically to either discuss their concerns openly or raise them with management. A speak‐up arrangement can compensate for this. It can help things go right even when something goes wrong. It is both interesting and important to consider Kaptein's insights alongside practical research into the implementation of speak‐up systems, including empirical work being carried out in Australia.⁸ Based on research into public sector organizations, the authors outline the elements of an organizational whistleblowing programme that, they note, are required to enhance a culture of supportiveness for speaking up. These include: organizational commitment, encouragement of reporting, assessment and investigation of reports, internal witness support and protection and an integrated organizational approach. The authors describe some examples of an integrated approach to embedding the programme in everyday actions as:

• Explicit observations by management that reporting wrongdoing is in line with the organiztion's ethical culture (as expressed in the code of conduct or equivalent mechanism), as well as being in accordance with the expectations of government and the public interest.
• All levels of management setting a personal example by supporting staff who come forward with reports of wrongdoing and ‘owning’ the report.
• With their consent, publicly acknowledging particular staff who have come forward with reports of wrongdoing.
• Building an understanding of whistleblowing processes through formal training mechanisms.
• Linking the treatment of staff who come forward with reports of wrongdoings to the assessment of the competence of managers.

  (From Roberts et al., 2011: p. 101)

In assessing best practice for developing supportive cultures in the implementation of speak‐up systems therefore, it is useful to consider best practice from research alongside empirical evidence.

WHISTLEBLOWING IS A PROTRACTED PROCESS

In the previous section we argued that it is important to distinguish between different internal speak‐up recipients. We used the research by Muel Kaptein that shows strong cultures do not automatically lead to effective informal speak‐up practices. Kaptein's research however does not consider the possibility of speaking up to different recipients in a sequence. The study does not include a measurement of how people continue to raise the concern—for example how one would raise a concern after confronting the wrongdoer, or after reporting to management. As briefly discussed in Chapter 2, there is a growing body of research showing whistleblowing is a protracted process, in which concerns about ‘mistakes’ can escalate to complaints and accusations, if not handled well. This research suggests whistleblowing is a process of both real and anticipated responses to the raising of a concern, rather than a one‐off decision.

Skivenes and Trygstad⁹ researched whistleblowing in the Norwegian public sector, and distinguish between weak, strong internal and strong external whistleblowing. The notion of strong whistleblowing puts an emphasis on process, as Skivenes and Trygstad define it as:

Where there is no improvement in, explanation for, or clarification of the reported misconduct from those who can do something about it. In such cases, an employee must report the misconduct again and is thus engaging in strong whistleblowing.¹⁰

The study found that 36% engaged in strong whistleblowing, with 29% raising the concern four times. The study however does not provide findings for specific internal and external recipients. Lewis and Vandekerckhove¹¹ used data from a survey of NHS Trusts in the UK, showing that internally more than half of the Trust employees raise their concern first with their line manager either informally (52.3%) or in writing (7.3%). The first external recipient of concerns is their trade union (38%), followed closely by professional body (35%). The study does not give further specification about internal or external paths. However, it does show that those who followed their organization's whistleblowing procedure were more likely to proceed to raise their concern externally when internal recipients showed to be ineffective or resulted in retaliation.

Interviewing more than 200 whistleblowers in the United States, Rothschild and Miethe¹² find that ‘[many] came to their whistle‐blowing almost by accident’.¹³ Employees raised their concern with their line manager and then further with senior management, each time believing the recipient would step in to correct the situation. Only after voicing their concern internally twice did they consider going to authorities outside the organization. By that time, their initial concern had become compounded with frustration and allegations of retaliation. One of the most important findings of their research is that:

[it] is management's response that shapes the potential whistle‐blower's subsequent actions. Specifically, our interviews revealed a common pattern in which management's efforts to discredit or retaliate against the claimant become the major catalyst for the political transformation of the concerned employee into a ‘persistent resister’.¹⁴

In an attempt to track reporting paths whistleblowers take, Donkin et al.¹⁵ used data from two surveys of Australian public sector workers. Unfortunately the two surveys differ in the way they captured the sequence of reporting. One survey asked respondents to indicate with whom they raised their concern the first time, second time, and so on. The other survey asked respondents to indicate with whom they raised first, and list all subsequent recipients without indicating the sequence. Findings show that 97% of whistleblowing starts as internal speak‐up, and 90% remains internal. It is also clear that line managers and senior management are generally the first two ports of call.¹⁶

Research in the UK based on data from an advice line for whistleblowers¹⁷ allows more insight into how a whistleblowing process unfolds. For 868 cases, the research traced what the initial and subsequent three attempts to raise a concern looked like, that is, to who did the employee speak‐up the first four times. In the 868 cases a concern had been raised at least once, in 484 at least twice, in 142 at least three times, and in 22 cases the concern had been raised four times. Table 4.2 gives an overview of the protractedness of the whistleblowing cases.

Hence, in 54.8% of the cases, whistleblowers will speak up more than once. The research also found that not only do whistleblowers raise their concern internally before they do so externally, but they tend to raise internally more than once before going external, if they go external at all. Table 4.3 gives an overview of internal, external, and union recipients in the whistleblowing process excluding ‘other’.

In the PCAW sample of 868 cases, a concern was raised 1516 times, 80.7% of which was internal, 16.6% external, and 2.7% to a union representative. Whilst the number of those making external disclosures increases as the whistleblowing process becomes more protracted, it never surpasses the number of those making internal disclosures.

Who are the recipients of speak‐ups? Figure 4.1 shows whom whistleblowers raised their concern with at each attempt. Donkin et al.¹⁸ found in their Australian field study that line managers and higher management were by far the most used ‘ports of call’ for whistleblowers. Table 4.2 shows that the UK field study confirms this. Unlike Donkin et al¹⁹ however, the UK data allows to give a more detailed picture of who the recipients are. Only 7% raised their concern initially directly with the wrongdoer, whilst more than half of the whistleblowers in the sample (52%) first raised their concern with their line manager. More than one in five (22%) do so with higher management in the first instance but a higher proportion (33%) goes to higher management when raising their concern a second time. Other recipients showing an increase at the second instance are specialist channels, regulators, external bodies, and grievances. Their usage increases even more at the third instance. We also need to note that by the third and fourth attempt whistleblowers are most likely to pursue the matter via a grievance procedure. It must be noted that a grievance procedure is unsuited to a whistleblowing concern. A grievance procedure is a complaint procedure, and hence places the onus on the individual to prove the complaint. A whistleblower however is a witness, passing on information to those with a responsibility to address the problem. A witness should not have to prove their concern.

Many would argue that raising a concern with the wrongdoer directly or with your line manager cannot be called internal whistleblowing because the concern is not raised outside of the hierarchical line. However, Rothschild and Miethe²⁰ highlight that it is the response from that line manager that makes someone a whistleblower. It might very well be that those who first raise concerns with the line managers do not perceive themselves as whistleblowers, at least not at that time. The responses they get from the wrongdoer or their line managers, however, might lead them to identify as whistleblowers. In other words, people tend to approach higher management the second time they attempt to speak out, while it is common to seek out a specialist channel, regulator, or an external body in both the second and third instance. This suggests that whistleblowers seek to raise their concern with increasingly independent recipients, rather than merely deciding to blow the whistle externally if an internal channel is unsuccessful as is often thought.

The PCAW research also highlights patterns within the sequences of recipients used by whistleblowers to raise a concern.²¹ For whistleblowing where a specialist channel (compliance, auditor, HR) was the final recipient and was also the second attempt, 56% of the previous reports were to the line manager and 24% were raised with higher management. Where the sequence involved three attempts, the salient pattern was as follows: first line manager, then higher manager, and then specialist channel (55%). This finding has an important implication for organizational actors operating such a specialist channel—e.g. audit, compliance, HR. These channels are often named in organizational whistleblowing or speak‐up policies, and nearly always guarantee whistleblowers that their identity will be kept confidential. Both the PCAW²² data from the UK as well as Donkin et al.'s²³ Australian data suggests that the vast majority of those using a specialist channel have already raised their concern with someone else before using the specialist channel. The implication is that in most cases, either the whistleblower's line manager, higher management, or both know who has raised the concern that auditors or compliance officers might investigate. Specialist channels as recipients of whistleblower concerns might act wisely to make whistleblowers aware of this risk, and in any case carry out investigations assuming others will know who the whistleblower is.

Other patterns also underline the significant role of management's responsiveness.²⁴ Where the whistleblowing process ended with a regulator, salient sequences also involved line managers and higher management. For sequences of two attempts, these were as follows: line manager before regulator (56%), and higher management before regulator (25%). For sequences of three attempts the pattern was as follows: first line manager, then higher management before regulator (22%). Similar patterns emerge where the whistleblowing process ends with an external agency other than the regulator (media or NGO). Either line manager, higher management, or both have been recipients of a speak‐up concern before the whistle is blown outside. A substantial amount (12.2%) of whistleblower cases end in whistleblowers opting for a grievance route, meaning they raise their concern through a formal grievance procedure in response to the retaliation they suffer. These also tend to be protracted: half of them (50%) do so after one attempt to raise their concern elsewhere, and 26.4% after two attempts. Salient sequences involve higher management (45.3% of two attempt sequences), line managers (35.8% of two attempt sequences), or both (line manager–higher management–grievance is 28.6% of three attempt sequences). Patterns involving other recipients are specialist channel—grievance (7.5%) and line manager–external recipient–grievance (17.9%).

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO SPEAK‐UPS ENTAIL?

When people raise a concern, they communicate to someone else that they believe something in their organization is going wrong, and they expect that someone to take action. No matter what the recipient of a speak‐up does after someone has raised a concern, through their response, the organization communicates something back to the whistleblower. This is the interactional view on communication, developed by Paul Watzlawick based on Gregory Bateson's ‘double bind’ theory. Watzlawick's theory is commonly summarized in five axioms,²⁵ two of which we deem crucial here to understand whistleblowing and why the source of organizational risk from whistleblowing lies in the way of responding to the whistleblower.

The first of Watzlawick's axioms that we deem crucial states that every communication consists of a content and a relationship aspect. When a worker is saying something is going wrong in the organization, they are informing someone about the wrongdoing. That is the content aspect of their communication: some facts and their evaluation of these facts as wrongdoing. There is also a relationship aspect of that communication—namely, they are also communicating that they are not able to prevent or stop that wrongdoing. They do not have to put that in actual words to communicate it. They are raising their concern precisely because they do not have the power to take action, and they assume the recipient has that power.

Watzlawick further specifies that the relationship aspect allows for interpretation of the content. Hence it is a communication about the communication, or a meta‐communication. Since the relationship aspect of whistleblowing is a communication from someone who does not have power to someone who has power (or is assumed to have power), the meta‐communication comes down to ‘you do something about this wrongdoing’.

The second axiom of Watzlawick's communication theory we mention here is that ‘one cannot not communicate’. If you think of behaviour, it is easy to understand that one cannot not behave. Even sitting still is behaviour, as is holding your breath. Because of the relationship aspect, communication is a form of behaviour. Hence, not saying anything is also a form of communication. The relationship aspect—who you are not saying anything to—will allow the other to interpret the silence. Thus ‘no content’ becomes content; not saying anything becomes saying nothing, and that means something.

How is this relevant to whistleblowing? So far we have established that what whistleblowers communicate is ‘you must do something about this.’ Because communication is interactive, once their concerns have been raised with recipients, the recipients cannot not communicate something back. Thus, anything the recipients do or do not do is a response. One cannot not respond to a whistleblower.

There are three generic ways to respond to whistleblowers: ignore, retaliate against them or take action to stop the wrongdoing. There are various ways in which whistleblowers are retaliated against (see Chapter 2), and also many kinds of action organizations could take to stop the wrongdoing, but let us keep things simple for the moment. The PCAW research²⁶ mentioned earlier found that when people started to speak up, 63% were ignored, 35% experienced reprisal (3% received threats and 32% experienced actual reprisal), and only 2% said they felt supported by management. The study also includes data on what people said had happened to the wrongdoing after they raised their concern: 74% felt that nothing was being done to address the wrongdoing, and only 6% indicated the wrongdoing had stopped. The other 20% said the wrongdoing was being investigated, but only half of these had confidence in the investigation.

What do these responses communicate to whistleblowers? Those who raise concerns and who get ignored may interpret the silence as an indication they are completely irrelevant, both to what goes on in the organization and as people. It is a denial of any expertise the whistleblowers might have.²⁷ This is different when someone raises a concern and is retaliated against. Retaliation does not communicate irrelevance. Rather, the interpretation of retaliation or the threat of retaliation makes the person raising the concern suddenly become highly relevant to what goes on in the organization. What is being communicated in this scenario is that he or she is a threat to the status quo, that is, maintaining the wrongdoing.²⁸ Research shows that retaliation against those who raise concerns inside their organizations makes it more likely that those people will go on and raise their concerns outside the organization.²⁹ The response that they are relevant but annoying acknowledges that the person is ‘on to something’: that their concerns are not misguided. In that sense, retaliation can trigger the self‐identification of someone with a concern as a whistleblower. It can also make it very clear to the person raising the concern what the terms of the game are—namely, that they are expected to keep quiet.

Frederick Bird³⁰ wrote about the phenomenon of organizations where people get signals that voicing of concerns is not wanted. He calls this phenomenon the ‘muted conscience’, and distinguishes between moral muteness on the one hand and hypocrisy on the other. Whereas hypocrites voice moral concerns they do not possess, moral muteness occurs when people fail to voice the moral concerns they do hold and therefore also often fail to act upon them. Moral muteness is enforced by expressions of moral deafness (i.e. ignoring those who raise concerns) and moral blindness (for example, refusing to see the concerns when they are raised and instead seeing the people raising it as annoyance).

Among the factors creating a muted conscience are lack of accountability, organizational barriers to dissent, fear of involvement, weak conscience, and a sense of futility. Using Bird's terminology then, it can be said then that responding to people who raise concerns by ignoring them or by retaliating against them enforces a muted conscience. Ignoring them makes the voicing of a moral concern futile and weakens their conscience. Retaliating against them creates a fear of involvement, acknowledges a lack of accountability, and creates a barrier to any dissent.

The point is that any response to someone raising a concern not only communicates something back to the person raising the concern, but in itself is a communication about the moral consciousness that is present in the organization to the wrongdoer, other managers, and future potential whistleblowers. Hence, in responding to whistleblowers there is a feedback loop that goes not only to the whistleblower but to everyone in the organization, as depicted in Figure 4.2.

Ignoring whistleblowers communicates to them that they are irrelevant to what goes on in the organization. To wrongdoers it communicates that there is a lack of accountability in the organization and hence that their wrongdoing will not hamper the success of the organization. It communicates to future potential whistleblowers that raising a concern is futile, and denies them any involvement in achieving organizational outcomes beyond what they are told to do. In short, it kills engagement and tells people not to care about the organization they work in. This is a dangerous situation because it is the perfect recipe for small wrongdoings to grow into disasters.

Retaliating against whistleblowers will have similar effects but might speed things up. It communicates to wrongdoers that the organization is on their side, and might indicate to the wrongdoers and others that the wrongdoing is beneficial to the organization. Corrupt business models might work in short term, but in the long term they either fail or waste a lot of resources and time when trying to get things back on track. To future potential whistleblowers retaliation induces a fear of involvement and leaves them with three choices: to join in on the wrongdoing, leave the organization, or blow the whistle outside the organization. As noted earlier, retaliation communicates to the whistleblower that he or she is on to something. If this triggers them to self‐identify as whistleblowers, it becomes more likely that they will blow the whistle outside of the organization to a regulator or to the media. Hence, retaliating against internal whistleblowers allows small wrongdoings to grow into disasters more quickly, and also makes it more likely that external actors will intervene. If that happens, whatever the wrongdoing was, it has become a disaster for the organization.

The wrongdoing that occurs when concerns are ignored or employees who speak up are retaliated against, is another type of wrongdoing by the organization. It is wrongdoing because it denies the person their moral consciousness, their sense of expertise, and their engagement. It is also wrongdoing because it will allow the reported behaviour to go on or even become more severe. This behaviour by the organization is then enforced through the feedback loop that communicates not only to the whistleblower but to everyone in the organization that the concern is not valid or the wrong behaviour is acceptable.

A second implication emerges when we take into regard Watzlawick's theory of communication, and the meta‐communications or the relationship aspect of responding to whistleblowers by retaliating against them or ignoring them. If silence tells them they are irrelevant and denies them their expertise, and if reprisal tells them they are annoying, what happens when they try to raise their concern again? Their concern will include both facts about the wrongdoing and emotions and facts about how they have been responded to previously. As Figure 4.3 depicts, the implication is that the story a whistleblower tells becomes more muddied with every attempt he or she makes. This not only makes it harder for the recipient to focus on the initial wrongdoing, but the treatment of the whistleblower is now a second wrongdoing that needs to be addressed as well. Research in the Netherlands³¹ on confidential advisors in organizations confirms this. In this study researchers found that the main task of the speak‐up advisors was to unravel facts from emotions and coach the advisee in raising their concern in an effective, factual way.

So far we have discussed ignoring and retaliating against whistleblowers. What about the third generic response—namely, taking action to stop the wrongdoing? This can mean different things: investigating the concern or the allegations, passing information on to someone who is mandated, resourced, and competent to do these investigations, intervening to change practices and behaviour of staff, and sanctioning the wrongdoer.

It is tempting to think of whistleblowing in isolation from the organizational context in which it always occurs. The idea then amounts to a straightforward plan: take the concern seriously, investigate the alleged wrongdoing, correct the wrongdoing, and sanction the wrongdoer. When people argue for better whistleblower protection, or for improved whistleblowing policies in general, this is also how they envision the journey: as a procedure that runs unpunctured and undisrupted from the moment the concern is raised to when the wrongdoing is stopped. As we saw in the last chapter, however, this is not the case. Concerns are raised in different ways, to different people at different times. A perfect process could only happen if the world would stop the moment the concern is raised and would start moving again once the investigation of the wrongdoing has taken place and the sanctions have been decided. Unfortunately this assumption simply does not hold. The world keeps turning, and the organization keeps moving, as does everyone in it.

Anechiarico and Jacobs³² argue that as an instrument to detect wrongdoing, speak‐up arrangements also bring an efficiency cost to organizations. Writing in the context of government administration, they note how investigations following a speak‐up can paralyse a whole department, as the agency head refuses to act out of fear of triggering criticism while investigations are under way. They cite a case where the investigations took six years to complete.³³ Organizations cannot afford such paralysis, but while they need to continue to function well and smoothly, there needs to be trust that wrongdoing will nevertheless be stopped. That is a huge challenge. What happens when a concern is raised is a ‘disorganization’.³⁴ The management problem becomes a people problem. How to correct the wrongdoing remains neatly within a standard management process of planning, delegating, monitoring, and correcting. For the people problem however—how to maintain, restore and reconfigure cooperation between people—there are no simple heuristics. To develop an answer we must look to the complexities of trust in organizations. In the next section we present insights on how trust relationships evolve throughout the whistleblowing process from the point of view of the speak‐up operator—the recipient of internal whistleblowing.

CHALLENGES OF OPERATING SPEAK‐UP ARRANGEMENTS

A practice of speaking up that is both safe and effective relies on organizational cultures that are conducive to open discussion of concerns. We write this book from the position that such cultures can and need to be nurtured, and that effective speak‐up arrangements are crucial in doing so. Too often organizations mistakenly assume that declaring an ‘open door’ policy creates an ‘open door’ culture. Yet cultures are not created by mere declaration. Carlos³⁵ studied the effectiveness of a range of voice channels and found that informal ‘open door’ policies either work well or fail miserably. Hence relying on informal ‘open door’ policies is too risky, especially in complex organizations. As introduced in Chapter 2, whistleblowing research notes the importance of trust for internal whistleblowing that is both effective and safe.³⁶ When trust exists, employees are more likely to speak up, and also more likely to do so internally rather than externally.³⁷ Conversely, if there is a culture of silence, as was described in some of the sectors in Chapter 3, or when there is little organizational support for speaking up, individuals may find it wiser to keep quiet.³⁸ However, trust has so far not been a central concept in whistleblowing research. Perhaps this is because whistleblowing has mainly been studied as a one‐off event rather than a process in the context of whistleblowing,³⁹ and, as discussed in Chapter 2, the idea that trust is largely seen as a static part of organization culture. The literature on trust however, has theorized it as a process in which time is a key dimension for examining how it happens and evolves, through interactions between truster and trustee.⁴⁰ Further on in this chapter, we will draw explicitly on theories of trust as a process to explore how speak‐up operators attempt to make the speak‐up arrangement trustworthy.

Three of the organizations in Chapter 3 had introduced their speak‐up arrangement in response to a crisis of trust. In one of our case organizations, this crisis was triggered by wrongdoing involving the organization, which led to police raiding their offices, and to substantial regulatory sanctions. In another organization, regulators carried out inspections following a whistleblower concern being raised with them. In a third case organization, the crisis in trust was triggered by scandals in the industry, rather than wrongdoing involving the company itself. None of these organizations had time to rebuild trust before implementing a speak‐up arrangement. Instead, they rebuilt trust through the implementation of their speak‐up arrangement. In our research we noticed how the speak‐up arrangements in the organizations shaped practices of trust, rather than relying on trust. Hence, trust appears as a continuous process involving: practices that change over time, the supported independence of speak‐up operators, and in some cases outsider trust.

BARRIERS TO RESPONSIVENESS

The literature on employee voice suggests that from an employee perspective one of the key attributes of effective voice systems is credibility, and that employees perceive managers as fair when they provide accounts and explanations for decisions.⁴⁸ Our research with speak‐up operators finds that in the context of concerns about wrongdoing, giving account and explanation is not always straightforward. There are three main reasons for this: anonymous concerns, legal limitations, and the invisibility of response.

STRATEGIES FOR TRUSTWORTHINESS (AND THEIR POTENTIAL PITFALLS)

Because whistleblowing is a protracted process, studying notions of trust in the progression of disclosures requires using a process view of trust, in which interactions over time play an important role. Central to the notion of ‘trust as process’ or ‘trusting’ is the temporal nature of trust. In Chapter 2, we introduced trust as continuous and dynamic rather than momentary and static.⁵⁰ Nooteboom⁵¹ critiques transaction costs economics (TCE) by arguing that although TCE acknowledges the importance of time lapses, parameters of trust are nevertheless assumed as unchanging. Yet, if we research ongoing interactions, it is unreasonable to ignore that perceptions about past interactions, propensities towards opportunism, and possibilities of building trust are formed during these repeated interactions. Adobor⁵² and Jagd⁵³ argue in a similar direction—namely, that earlier experiences can provide small cues that, through a process of sense making, are subsequently enlarged through accumulation of evidence, which may lead to behavioural changes instantiating alternative or additional forms of trust. Hence how trusting in organizations changes and evolves is essential when studying trust as a process. Following Möllering,⁵⁴ we provide in this section insights into how speak‐up operators attempt to support trust between whistleblower, speak‐up operator, and the organization (see Box 4.4).

Adjacent to the process view of ‘trust as continuing’ is the process view of ‘trust as becoming’.⁶² If trust needs to be continuously (re)produced, and positive trust experiences enhance the truster's well‐being, professional identities are central to the process of trusting. Repeated negative trusting experiences adversely impact the mental health of employees who speak up.⁶³ Our research provides insights into how experiences around speak‐up can be seen as changing the how of trusting rather than simply altering levels of trust, and how this corresponds with changes in professional identity. Möllering⁶⁴ emphasizes that trusting is not only formative for individual identity but also for collective identity: ‘trusting signals and confirms an actor's willingness to belong to a collective’.⁶⁵ It is crucial to include this in a study of practices of trusting that emerge around the implementation of speak‐up arrangements in organizations because such management interventions are often linked to stated values and rules of the organization in codes of conduct.⁶⁶ Möllering's sketch (2013) of the process view on ‘trusting as constituting’ suggests however that trusting is not simply dependent on the organizational context, that is, the trusting that emerges around speak‐up arrangements is not determined by the conjoining‐values statement. Trusting as constituting implies that rules and resources in which speak‐up arrangements are embedded (such as organizational values) are (re)produced.

Our interviewees were of the view that employees normally raise a concern about wrongdoing with their line manager, and only use a speak‐up channel when there is a lack of trust between the employee and this person. This was always perceived as a lack of intentional trust; the employee believes the line manager does not want to look into the concern. Our interviewees phrased this in terms of employees fearing that the manager would retaliate. In addition, speak‐up operators themselves perceived employees to often lack trust in them. They phrased this in terms of lack of competence trust; the employee believes the designated speak‐up recipient lacks the ability to look into the concern. For example, our multinational organization uses an external ombudsperson based in central Europe. Our interviewees were convinced employees from Latin America did not use the ombudsperson to speak up because they believed the ombudsperson would not be able to understand their language. Another example is where interviewees found it hard to explain to employees what the process was that the compliance office used to maintain the whistleblower's identity confidential. This resulted in the employees' lack of trust in the compliance officer's competence to maintain confidentiality. These are instances where people lack ‘good reasons’, and are not able to make the ‘leap of faith’.⁶⁷

Our interviewees acknowledged that if they were not successful in being trustworthy, employees would blow the whistle externally. Hence, speak‐up operators made various interventions in an attempt to allow employees to trust internal speak‐up channels. If the organization fails to convey an expectation to the whistleblower that he or she will be taken seriously and treated well—for instance by providing and sharing the case of successful whistleblowing—this could lead to the whistleblower turning to an external recipient such as a regulator or media resulting in the scandal causing additional costs to the organization. Hence speak‐up operators have an incentive to behave well towards whistleblowers.

FACILITATORS OF RESPONSIVENESS

A climate of silence is characterised by the perception that speaking up is futile and risky, as detailed by Morrison and Milliken's influential work. This differs from a culture of silence, as discussed in Chapter 3 slightly, in that a ‘culture of silence’ involves more explicit barriers to speaking up. Such a climate is formed through an interactive process of collective sense making, in which salient events are exaggerated and generalized.⁷⁶ Collective sense making is a process of story‐telling and other verbal interactions, through which people come to have a shared understanding of a situation without necessarily having experienced that situation. One interviewee at the bank stressed the symbolic importance of visible responsiveness for collective sense‐making, in a rather extreme way:

What's been done and where's the body, where's that symbolic thing—I always talk about symbolism—Somebody's thrown off the fourth floor because they did the wrong thing. Leave the body there for a while. Everybody'll get it. (Bank interviewee B)

Whilst management is limited in its ability to demonstrate responsiveness due to the reasons mentioned earlier, not all actions against wrongdoers are invisible. Some of the organizations in our research seemed to assume there were enough of these visible cases to create a shared perception that the organization was responsive to speak‐up concerns. At the engineering company, word‐of‐mouth communication of visible responses among staff was relied on to create a shared perception of responsiveness.

From time to time, if somebody does the wrong thing, he or she has to leave the company, and everybody knows it […] they hear it, grapevine, that this or that person had to leave the company because of bad behaviour, because of stealing something, because of doing something with corruption, and so on. (Engineering company interviewee D)

It's not difficult to go to internet to see that the company also terminated the contract of the former CEO because of our wrongdoing. And then it's quite easy for every single employee from the company in this country to understand that the rules apply to everyone and the system works. It's not a thing that I need to emphasise very much here. (Engineering company interviewee E)

Management needs to find indirect ways of creating a more general perception of responsiveness. We now elaborate on different ways in which the organizations we studied attempted to do this.

USING SPEAK‐UP DATA

Speak‐up arrangements integrate voice channels through centrally registering and tracking employee concerns. In theory this allows top management and board members to assess how receptive to employee voice is the culture at various locations and levels within the organization. The term ‘voice culture’ refers to the set of shared beliefs about how safe and effective it is to voice a concern. We find that our sample organizations are at various stages in making use of this additional data.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: A MODEL FOR DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE SPEAK‐UP SYSTEMS

Based on these insights we propose a model for sustainable speak up systems, depicted in Figure 4.4. The key success factors for operating speak‐up systems, identified in our empirical research, are independence, responsiveness and time. The independence of the speak‐up recipient is key. This is because employees are more likely to speak up to a recipient that is removed from the wrongdoing. In addition, responsiveness is essential; employees must perceive that their report is being acted on for speak‐up arrangements to work. There are sometimes barriers to how responsive the organization can be, as we have described. Finally the preferred channel for speaking up can change with time as employees get used to the systems that are in place.

Combining this with insights from earlier research studies, it is clear that to enable independence, to enhance responsiveness and to support speak‐up systems over time, two contextual features are necessary. An ethical culture in the organization, and a strong atmosphere of trust, are both required. Kaptein's work on ethical culture describes the environment inside an organization that enables and constrains various types of whistleblowing. He shows how culture has an impact on how employees speak up, and to whom.⁸²

Through our empirical analysis we add trust to this vital aspect. Trust needs to be created in the organization implementing such systems but also maintained over time. For successful speak‐ups, whistleblowers and speak‐up operators have to make a ‘leap of faith’ and act on uncertain knowledge. Strategies for creating this trust include empathy with the whistleblower, and providing a choice of interfaces for the whistleblower to choose from. Adding to this, strategies for maintaining trust include communications regarding investigations that emerge from speak‐ups and the relevant steps, along with operator independence. The implementation of these strategies must account for the fact that the success factors of effective speak up and the organizational contextual factors that enhance them are mutually constitutive. This means that the presence of each supports and reinforces the other. Increased responsiveness and the introduction of independent channels build trust, for example, which in turn enhances the success of speak up practices.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we have drawn on our empirical work and the literature to explore how people speak up, as well as what challenges and expectations speak‐up arrangements face. We began with Kaptein's research on ethical workplaces, highlighting that even ethical organizations need whistleblowing policies, precisely because some of their ethical virtues will lead employees either to remain silent—potentially losing their commitment—or to blow the whistle outside the organization. We then presented research from various authors that shows whistleblowing is a protracted process, and whistleblowers usually speak up more than once, to increasingly independent recipients. Next, we used two axioms from Watzlawick's communication theory tho show how the lack of a perceived response can actually be a response to a whistleblower. This draws attention to some of the challenges of operating speak up systems that we identified in our empirical research: Independence, responsiveness and time. We found that the independence of the recipient is key, as employees are more likely to speak up to a receipient that is removed from the wrongdoing. Additionally responsiveness was key, as employees must perceive that their report is being acted on for speak‐up arrangements to work. There are sometimes barriers to how responsive the organization can be, as we identified in our empirical work. When anonymous concerns are raised, it is hard to communicate to the whistleblower that thier concern is being taken seriously. Additionally, legal issues may prevent organizations from publicising the actions that they have taken to correct the wrongdoing. Even when organizations do act, if the response is invisible, such as when an employee is reprimanded, it may be difficult to communicate this back to the whistleblower. Finally, the preferred channel for speaking up can change with time, as employees get used to the systems that are in place.

We stress the importance of trust in overcoming these barriers, and offer strategies for creating and maintianing trust, as well as tips to facilitate responsiveness. Key to this is keping and using data on the number of speak‐ups that are received in the organization. In the following chapter we present recommendations for how to put all of this into practice.