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A Dual-Processing Model of Moral Whistleblowing in Organizations

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Sisyphus was King of Corinth. One day he chanced to see a mighty eagle, greater and more splendid than any mortal bird, bearing a maiden to an island not far away. When the river-god Asopus came to him to tell him that his daughter Aegina had been carried off. Sisyphus told him what he had seen. Thereby he drew down on himself the relentless wrath of Zeus. In Hades he was punished by having to try forever to roll a rock uphill which forever rolled back upon him (Hamilton 1942, p. 440).

Abstract

A dual-processing model of moral whistleblowing in organizations is proposed. In this theory paper, moral whistleblowing is described as a unique type of whistleblowing that is undertaken by individuals that see themselves as moral agents and are primarily motivated to blow the whistle by a sense of moral duty. At the individual level, the model expands on traditional, rational models of whistleblowing by exploring how moral intuition and deliberative reasoning processes might interact to influence the whistleblowing behavior of moral agents. The model combines individual variables (e.g., moral identity), organizational variables (e.g., organizational culture), and external, societal variables (e.g., media perceptions) to explain the moral whistleblowing process and the impact of moral agents on organizations and society.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA

    Logan L. Watts

  2. Division of Management and International Business, Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA

    M. Ronald Buckley

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  1. Logan L. Watts
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Correspondence to M. Ronald Buckley.

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Watts, L.L., Ronald Buckley, M. A Dual-Processing Model of Moral Whistleblowing in Organizations. J Bus Ethics 146, 669–683 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2913-9

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