Overwhelming Public Support For Whistleblowers
New research by the
Three quarters of respondents, who are employees or members of an organisation, also indicated that if they observed wrongdoing, they would feel personally obliged to report it to someone in their organisation. However, a smaller proportion were confident their organisation would stop wrongdoing if they reported it, and less than half thought management in their organisation were serious about protecting people who report wrongdong. Still, almost 9 out of 10 in
Dr Wim Vandekerckhove from the Work and Employment Relations Unit (WERU) at the
Dr Vandekerckhove concludes that this research shows people will raise concern inside their organisation, but adds: 'If we don't make it safer for employees to speak up inside their organisations, people will support those who blow the whistle to the media.' Political, business and community leaders must accept this new reality, and develop and implement legislation and policies that make it safe and effective to speak up about wrongdoing inside the organisation.
This research was funded by the University of Greenwich Business School. ComRes interviewed 2,000 adults online from 26th to 28th October 2012. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all British adults aged 18+. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Full data tables are available at ComRes.co.uk.
Dr Wim Vandekerckhove is Senior Lecturer at the
The survey is part of an ongoing international project measuring public attitudes to whistleblowing. Findings in
Source: The University of Greenwich