Week 4: Bryan Ngo, A01

Week 4:

Bryan Ngo

ASA 002

A01

It’s unfortunate that many of us work in a culture where whistleblowing is actually frowned upon. In a purely optimistic world, we would hope that calling out unethical behavior in a workplace environment is supported by everyone in said environment, but it’s not. Similar to what Amy Block Joy stated in “Ethics and ‘Breaking Bad’: Developing and practicing ethical skills”, we abstain from such behavior out of fear; fear of being disliked by colleagues and fear of being unjustly treated by administration. I think that fear is illustrative of how complicated these organizations get; when doing the right thing is not always the best option. Individuals in these large organizations develop their own agendas, eventually intertwining with each other to make a spaghetti-like organization. In “Whistleblower”, also by Joy, an attempt to do the right thing pushed Joy into very tense situations, where it felt like everyone was suddenly against her for calling out embezzlement found within the university. So what can we make of this? I believe any attempts to shake up people who hold higher positions than you require more than just any individual’s efforts. Attempting to, for example, highlight embezzlement within the university cannot be done by just Joy alone. There needs to be support by the public. When there is strength in numbers, it becomes more difficult to turn colleagues against each other. The fear get’s thinned out, and the opposing sides become clear.

Question: In Joy’s “Whistleblower”, the interviewer had unexplained reactions, at least to Joy. If an organization’s overall motives are clear to everyone, transparency should be no problem from each individual; unless there are individuals straying away from such objectives. If transparency can bring issues to light, why can’t administrators be more transparent with their motives?

References:

Joy, A. B. (2010). Whistleblower. Point Richmond, CA: Bay Tree Pub.

Joy, A. B. (2014). Ethics and “Breaking Bad”: Developing and practicing ethical skills. Compliance and Ethics Professional.

[Digital Image] Retrieved October 15, 2017, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/increasing-organizational-transparency-eliminating-fear-berman