Whistle Blowing And Its Ramifications
Everyday people make decisions that affect their lives in someway. Should I get the salad or the cheeseburger for lunch? Should I go out to the movies or stay in and watch TV? These simple decisions often happen without serious thought. Why? Because they are not life changing choices. But what happens when the decision is not so easy to make, when it’s life changing. Sometimes a person’s conscious greatly affects one’s decision making. Especially when the topic of whistle blowing arises. The dictionary defines whistle-blowing as the release of information by a member (or former member) of an organization that is evidence of illegal or immoral conduct in the organization, or conduct in the organization that is not in the public interest. It is hard to imagine the agony of discovering wrongdoing in your profession. The choice of keeping quiet can put others at risk and your conscious will kick in and spawn guilty feelings. But blowing the whistle could mean professional destruction. Surprisingly whistle blowing is on the rise. This is thanks to high-profile insiders who have gone public with dirty details of corporate corruption and because of a new law that offers an increase in protection for those who are willi
ng to report suspected violations on the job. In conclusion, the act of whistle blowing helps reveal the wrongdoing of the business world. It takes a special person with strong morals to take the ramifications of whistle blowing. Losing a prized job, having to down size your life, and your life being wide open to scrutiny are affects of whistle blowing. There have been steps in the positive direction to help more people come forward and reveal the truth about what happens behind closed doors. In the future, there is hope that people won’t be ridiculed so harshly and dirty happenings will cease. The most recent creation to assist whistle blower was the Public Company Accounting and Investor Protection Act of 2002, otherwise known as Sarbanes-Oxley made it easier on whistle blowers and increased corporate accountability. The act protects employees of publicly traded companies who attempt to report suspected wrongdoing. It requires companies to establish methods for workers to report suspected abuse anonymously, and makes a criminal offense of firing, demoting or harassing them. Lastly, the law requires attorneys from the public companies to report suspected misdeeds. Whistle blowing became exposed in popular culture and politics with such government events as the Vietnam War and Watergate. These events resulted in the Whistle Blowers Protection Act of 1978. It granted protection to federal government workers who reported suspect actions and established whistle blower hot lines at federal agencies. Even the addition of Sarbanes-Oxley a
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Approximate Word count = 1052
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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