Whistleblowing Literature Review

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
The review of literature of this study broadly focused on whistleblowing. There have been several attempts to define whistleblowing, but certainly there is no generally accepted definition. According to Near and Miceli (1985), which are often referred by researchers, whistleblowing is a process whereby a current or former member of an organization discloses practices or activities believe to be illegal, immoral or illegitimate, to those who may be able to effect change. The practices or activities can be refer to personal misbehavior such as stealing, waste, mismanagement, safety problems, sexual harassment, unfair discrimination and legal violations (Dasgupta & Kesharwani, 2010). With regards to whistleblowing, the act

This decision is driven, in part, by the employee’s cognitive evaluation of the costs and benefits associated with each decision alternative (Keil, Tiwana, Sainsbury, and Sneha 2010).Those who take either of the last two routes are considered whistleblowers. Whistleblowers can report wrongdoings through either internal or external channels. Typically, whistleblowers will internally report a wrongdoing before exercising their external channel, but when they choose to use external channels of reporting, they are commonly portrayed negatively as a threat to the organization (Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005, 277-297). According to Fincher (2009) that there are three types of employees who become whistleblowers: senior executives (e.g., vice presidents, company attorney), professionals (e.g., quality control technicians, training instructors, engineers and human resource managers), and hourly workers (e.g., electricians and maintenance

Whistleblower also worried as they normally viewed themselves as “blackballed” where they may be facing difficulty to engage new employment. “Whistleblowers have a strong sense of injustice” as cited by Fincher (2009). Despite the benefits, the act of exposing wrongdoing within an organization is no easy task, and whistleblowers are often exposed to negative consequences, such as demotion, dismissal, and blacklisting (Cassematis & Wortley, 2013; Chang et al.,