We found several theories to be crucial in informing our work on speak‐up arrangements. They are summarized here briefly for reference. Each is part of an ongoing research agenda and is therefore changing and evolving over time, so this summary is incomplete, but hopefully gives a good indication of the background. We link these theories together, and by doing so build upon each. By supplementing this with the analysis of our empirical work we culminate with our proposed framework for understanding and implementing speak up arrangements.

EMPLOYEE VOICE

We start our framework with employee voice, because whistleblowing is an act of employees using their voice in their organizations to speak up about wrongdoing. Employee voice is more of a research stream than a theory, but this area of inquiry has important implications for whistleblowing studies. There are three general streams in the area of employee voice: the organizational behavior (OB) stream, the human resource management (HRM) stream and the employee relations (ER) stream. HRM/ER scholars tend to see voice as a way in which employees influence work practices and decisions either directly or indirectly through collective representation, and OB tends to see voice as a matter of individual workers communicating information for the benefit of the organization. The divergence in streams has led some researchers to try to synthesize the two views, which is done by moving away from the focus on motivation for speaking out, and instead acknowledging that it happens, and focusing on how to deal with it when it does.¹ This synthesis had informed research on whistleblowing as well as recent legislation by downplaying the motivation for speaking up. Indeed in many whistleblower protection laws, motivation is not a factor that impacts upon whether a whistleblower is protected or not.

FEARLESS SPEECH—FOUCAULT 2001, 2010

Whistleblowing is more than employee voice, however. Whistleblowers suffer, and so they speak up at some risk to themselves. This notion of risk led us to theories of Parrhesia. Parrhesia is a concept from Ancient Greece that is used and developed in the work of Michel Foucault. It is a type of speech that is bold, shocking and truthful, and was used in political discussions in Ancient Greece to oppose the rhetoric that pervaded political life. The key points of fearless speech are as follows:

1. It is a necessary condition for democracy: ‘Frankly speaking truth’ is a necessity and is elicited by the dynamic of the agora.
2. It is done by someone who is inferior to those for whom the critical and morally motivated truth is intended.
3. It is a democratic right: as a citizen of Athens, citizens had the right and some even had a moral obligation to use parrhesia.
4. It is a necessary condition for care because caring for the self as a matter of telling yourself the truth is presupposed in order to be able to take care of others, of the polis.
5. It implies both having and displaying courage, because speaking truth in public presupposes the courage to contradict the prevailing discourse, the public, the sovereign. This could mean that the parrhesiastes might risk his/her life.
6. It presupposes self‐critique as a precondition for a moral attitude.

This speaking truth to power at serious risk to oneself, is a useful framing for the whistleblowing process, and highlights the importance of the recipient. It provides theoretical justification for creating and implementing speak‐up arrangements. However, organizations that institutionalize whistleblowing through the introduction of speak‐up systems and whistleblowing hotlines run the risk of deadening parrhesiastic critique, because they systemize a process that needs to contain an element of spontaneity and surprise in order to be truly interruptive. (See also Kenny et al., 2019.)

TRUST—MöLLERING 2013

When using fearless speech, there needs to be some trust that the speech will be heard, even if there are still risks to the whistleblower. Theories of trust are key to both whistleblowing research and to understanding the challenges and best practices of speak‐up arrangements. There are multiple theories of trust, but in this book we draw on the theory developed by Möllering. This view frames trust as a mental process that encompasses the elements of expectation, interpretation, and suspension. So in the context of whistleblowing, a trusting whistleblower expects their speak‐up to be taken seriously and acted upon, they interpret the feedback that they get from managements and the speak‐up operator, and any uncertainty is overlooked and replaced with a ‘leap of faith’ that the outcome will be satisfactory. An untrusting whistleblower will not be able to make the leap of faith. Thus, past experiences, present interpretations and a sense of hope influence whether trust is present or not. In addition, Möllering 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’ (p. 294). Speak‐up arrangements both stimulate trust in the organization if they are implemented and operated well, but they also require trust to be effective. For example, in our study, 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. In this way the speak‐up arrangement fosters trust that is otherwise lacking. However, the arrangement needs to be trusted as well, 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 cases of successful whistleblowing. This could lead to the whistleblower not trusting the speak‐up arrangement and turning to an external recipient instead (see also Vandekerckhove, James, and West, 2013).

ETHICAL CULTURE—KAPTEIN 2011

Employees using their voices to engage in fearless speech and trusting that the hearer will listen and act on what they say contributes to an ethical culture in the workplace. Muel Kaptein has developed the Corporate Ethical Virtue Model that helps us understand ethical culture more clearly. He identifies seven virtues that stimulate organization members to behave in an ethical manner. The virtues identified are clarity, congruency, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability and sanctionability. Kaptein hypothesized how the presence of each virtue would affect the likelihood that an employee would speak up using various channels; whether they would remain silent, confront the wrongdoer, raise it with a manager, call the hotline or go to an external recipient. He found that various virtues had different impacts, but did not test the combination of virtues, or how the influence changes with additional speak‐ups. His research is helpful, however, in understanding how the culture of an organization influences how individuals will speak up, and aids in showing how speak‐up arrangements can be tailored to specific cultures. To be successful, they must be not only written in the language that people can understand but also must take account of organizational cultures (for example, has there already been negative publicity around whistleblowers in the organization?) and different sectors (what legal requirements are there to speak up and how does the speak‐up arrangement compliment these?) as well as national cultures (in Japan, for instance where employees often have jobs for life, how does the permanence of their employment affect how they can speak up?). This is particularly important when setting up speaking up arrangements in global company through its local subsidiaries.

INTERACTIONAL COMMUNICATION—WATZLAWICK ET AL. 1967

The Interactional Communication theory has five axioms, two of which are helpful in a whistleblowing context. The first of Watzlawick's axioms that we draw upon 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. This indicates that they cannot stop it themselves and therefore are seeking help from another. This 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’. For example, in the Challenger space shuttle disaster, Roger Boisjoly and other engineers at Thiolkol Inc. tried to convince their managers to intervene in the launch. In doing so, they communicated that they were not able to stop the launch, and expected that their managers could.

The second axiom of Watzlawick's communication theory we use is that ‘one cannot not communicate’. In a whistleblowing context, this means that a recipient cannot not respond. No response is seen by the whistleblower as a very clear response—namely that the recipient doesn't care. Both of these axioms point to the importance of a recipient responding to speak‐ups in an appropriate way and visibly responding to the individual who raises it. Although there are challenges to doing this effectively, the theory highlights the needs to react appropriately. For example, in the bank in our study, an anonymous report was sent to HR. Although HR investigated and found nothing wrong, because the response was invisible, the reporting employee thought that nothing was being done. This ‘nonresponse’ signaled to the employee that the concern was not being taken seriously and she escalated it to outside recipients. In this case the ‘nonresponse’ (invisible response) was taken as a very clear sign that the issue was not important.