Last Resort Approaches… Rocking the Boat and Whistleblowing
Sometimes ethics counsel falls on deaf ears. When that happens, public relations executives have three primary choices: (1) drop the issue and recognize the reality that they are not the final decision maker, (2) raise the concern to someone else, or (3) remove themselves from the situation by looking for another job or resigning. Senior public relations executives reported choosing all three of these options depending on the situation.
One PRSA Fellow described her obligation this way:
When I have spoken then I’m not listened to—at least in all clear conscience I can say that I brought it forward…that’s just part of the business and sometimes there are other powers at play that are going to make those decisions, but at least in clear conscience I can say, here’s what I think, and here’s why I think that and here’s how I think that we should move forward.
Jones (1991) provided insight on why people may decide to raise ethical concerns in some circumstances and choose not to in others. He identified six components of moral intensity that may provide insight into what may motivate some people to resort to drastic measures and why others choose to remain silent. The first is magnitude of the consequences, a perspective that focuses on the potential harms or benefits of the act in question. He suggested that issues have to reach a certain threshold to inspire people to act. The second component is social consensus, which refers to the degree of social agreement that a proposed act is evil or good. Specifically, this means that in situations where actions are clearly unethical or illegal by societal standards, people may be more willing to speak up and oppose the action. The third component is probability of effect, which refers to both the likelihood that the act in question will take place and that harm or benefit will occur. The fourth component is time. When there is less time pressure, the moral urgency to act immediately is reduced. The fifth component is proximity, or how near we feel to the victims or beneficiaries (i.e., stakeholders) of the act in question. Jones (1991) emphasized that “people care more about other people who are close to them than they do for people who are distant” (p. 376). The final component is concentration of effect, or the number of people affected by the decision. Consistent with moral intensity, a public relations executive working in a nonprofit said:
You have to pick your battles carefully. Over some minor thing, you don’t want to fall on your sword. But the major ethical things, you just literally have to take a stand and draw a line in the sand. Like I say, you have to be prepared to walk out. (Neill and Drumwright 2012)
When the issue is highly illegal or unethical, and moral intensity is greater, some public relations executives resort to the Omega tactics we listed earlier, such as leaking information to the media or government regulators, sabotaging implementation of a decision, or serving as a whistleblower (Berger and Reber 2006). Using a scale of 1 to 5 with one being very unlikely and 5 being very likely, members of SPRF and the PRSA College of Fellows were asked how likely they were to use these various Alpha and Omega tactics (see Table 6.1). Based on their survey responses, the average score was 1.46 for leaking information externally, 2.41 for serving as a whistleblower, and 2.59 for using an internal anonymous reporting system.
Through other survey research focused on dissent tactics, Kang and Berger (2010) found similar results, reporting that the tactic of assertively confronting management about the inappropriateness of the decision was used in organizations where top management did not appear to be committed to ethics, and the tactic of agitating others to join them in arguing and working against the decision (i.e., allies and coalitions) was used in organizations lacking a code of ethics. They determined that sabotage and information leaks were rarely used.
Table 6.1 Preferred influence tactics
Type of influence tactic |
Likelihood to use |
Asking questions/listening/dialogue |
4.67 |
Use of scenarios/alternatives/solutions |
4.47 |
Research |
4.27 |
Legitimacy appeals |
4.23 |
Raise concerns of stakeholders |
4.10 |
Headline test |
4.09 |
Personal experiences |
4.06 |
Case studies |
4.00 |
Allies/coalitions |
3.59 |
Direct approach |
3.57 |
Pressure/persistence |
3.53 |
Emotional appeals |
3.20 |
Internal anonymous reporting system |
2.59 |
Whistleblower |
2.41 |
Leaking information externally |
1.46 |
Dissent is defined as “a multi-step process that involves: (a) feeling apart from one’s organization (i.e., the experience of dissent), and (b) expressing disagreement or contradictory opinion’s about one’s organization (i.e., the expressions of dissent)” (Kassing 1997, p. 312). Articulated dissent refers to when employees raise concerns to someone within the organization who has the authority to address the concern such as supervisors and senior executives (Berger and Reber 2006; Kassing 1997). Someone who assumes the role of a dissenter does so “on the basis of (personal) principle and conscience” (Shahinpoor and Matt 2007, p. 40). Shahinpoor and Matt (2007) stressed that dissenters demonstrate their loyalty to the organization by voicing their concerns and advocating for improvements while still employed. When describing different forms of dissent, Redding (1985) defined a boat-rocker as someone “who expresses dissent—in a direct straight-forward manner—within the organization” (p. 246). By contrast, a whistleblower “voices his or her protest to people outside the organization” (Redding 1985, p. 246). During the interviews with PRSA Fellows, six reported serving as a whistleblower while ten said they had helped, advised or protected a whistleblower. In addition, three members of the Page Society said they had served as a whistleblower, and three of the Page members had helped, advised or protected one. Some of these executives started by raising the issue within the organization, or rocking the boat, and later had to resort to whistleblowing when those attempts failed to produce ethical action.
A member of the Page Society said she has been willing to raise the issue to someone higher in the organization, but always notified her colleagues before moving to the next level:
Ok, I’ve brought this to your attention, I still feel really strongly about this. Know that I’m now going to escalate it to the next level, right. Because I don’t want anyone to be surprised, because in one case I did go to the CEO and when the CEO called the person, I didn’t want the person to not say, oh yeah, I never heard from [her name] on this issue.
Some companies and organizations have ethics hotlines or committees that allow employees to report ethical concerns. Public relations executives caution, however, that those systems are not always safe to use. In one situation, described by a PRSA Fellow, the ethics committee ultimately reported to the CEO, who happened to be the one engaged in unethical behavior. It was costing the company millions of dollars:
I noticed that there were some conflicts of interest happening within the C-Suite and I reported it to the business ethics program and I reported it to the legal department, and nothing happened, except that I was reassigned to somebody else and basically sidelined. And as a senior practitioner, they brought in somebody who was 20 years my junior and basically started to assign my work to her. And they didn’t fire me, but they completely put me in a closet. And I watched as my duties eroded and was so frustrated because I thought this is so wrong. And people throughout the company realized what was going on and felt this is so wrong, but nothing was happening.
She stressed the retaliation led to a chilling effect that discouraged others from speaking out:
For these behaviors to be happening so blatantly and at the top levels, it was really shocking to a lot of people, and the fact that is was going unchecked and it was allowed to just happen. So there was a lot of public perception of wrong doing at that point. But no one felt empowered to be able to do anything about it without fear of losing their jobs. And especially when they saw the retaliation that I got that complicated things.
Eventually, she sought counsel from a mentor, who just happened to be friends with some of the members of the board of directors:
He knew that I was very upset with my current work situation. And he said, “What is going on?” And I told him. I said, “In the deepest confidence, here’s what’s going on”…I said, “This is one of the few times in my career, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to influence this.”…And finally after a number of discussions, he said, “Well, if I ever have the opportunity I know the chairman really well. You know we go play golf from time to time, and if the opportunity arises, I might just drop a bug in his ear.” It was about five months later that I got the call that said the CEO’s stepping down. And what makes me think that this guy had a hand in it was the very next day, I got a voice mail from him and he said, “Well, hope you’re doing Ok. Hope this makes your job better.” And he never said I did it, but it was like he was telling me it’s been taken care of.
PRSA Fellow Paula Pedene and one of her colleagues agreed to let their names be used to describe their experiences as a whistleblower. Since the issue involved the health and lives of U.S. veterans, she and others were willing to speak up. She discussed the progression:
We saw managers continuing to do things that were hurting our veterans. After those internal channels and anonymous letters didn’t work I collaborated with Dr. Sam Foote to expose the wrong doing through external sources, and that included Congress and the media. These avenues were very effective. It was a sad day for VA. But it was a good day for our veterans, because that’s when the VA wait time scandal broke.
Another PRSA Fellow expressed gratitude for her moral courage:
This woman performed one of the great services to the veterans of America of which I am one and, you know, she got the attention finally after three years of being personally pilloried. Long story short, I defend people who do that, I just hope they’re working in organizations where they don’t have to do that.
PRSA named Pedene as their 2015 “Public Relations Professional of the Year.”
Obviously, the decision to become a whistleblower requires courage and can come with great personal cost such as demotion and loss of employment. One PRSA Fellow felt a painful isolation:
Your network kind of shrinks, because at those points and times… two to three things happen. (1) You learn quickly who your true friends are. (2) You learn that there are people out there that are willing to throw you under the bus in order to help themselves get ahead. So there are people that don’t worry about a cost to another human in order to advance their own selves, which I have always thought was just interesting. And (3) there’s another group that out of fear cannot come forward to assist you.
Another PRSA Fellow had her motivations questioned when, as a volunteer board member, she presented evidence that senior leaders of a nonprofit organization had embezzled money to the point the organization was almost insolvent:
Many people on the board thought that I was kind of like a whistleblower and that I was trying to do it for some kind of personal gain. So it was an awkward situation to be in. To discover what you discovered, to tell people what you discovered. To have the facts there. Have the financial statement. The auditing firm. To have everything there to prove that you’re right and that people felt that I was grandstanding.
And yet another PRSA Fellow said he “rocked the boat” when other members of a nominating committee seemed determined to fix an election:
The chair of the nominating committee went around and said, “Just so we’re clear, does everyone agree with the path forward?” And it came to me, I was like one of the last people, and I said, “Absolutely not.” I said, “I will not agree to this. This does not reflect the values of the university and I’m appalled at the suggestion of it.” And I went to the president’s chief of staff, who was also at the time serving as the ethics officer. And yeah, it didn’t go well for the rest of the committee, but I was not going to be a party to it...It prevented something that I thought was very unfair from happening. And by the way, that person that they wanted to put up as the candidate, did not get elected.
Another PRSA Fellow spoke out when he witnessed harassment in the workplace. “So there was a situation where there was…a senior person, a vice president at the company whose behavior toward subordinates was so disturbing that I felt like I couldn’t keep quiet about it.” He ended up leaving the organization:
The official channel to go to in terms of the chain of command was not the proper way to go in this because of personal relationships. But others on the executive team…I felt like they got the message about what was going on. It was one of those things where in the short term, I felt some pain, but in the long term, I felt pretty good about it.
A Page Society member also spoke up about harassment in the workplace involving her boss:
I had a direct supervisor who did not model the values of the company at all by any stretch of the imagination and was absolutely abusive to my employees and I believe created a hostile work environment. And I took it to HR, I took it to ethics, I took it to the president of the company. I used every avenue I had available to me. They all chose to do nothing about it, and I had employees that went on stress disability. I had employees quit. It really was an awful, awful situation. And I weighed back and forth whether or not I should – I mean many, many times I wanted to quit, but then I felt like I was abandoning my employees and I was the only buffer they had, and what would happen if I left.
In that same situation, she encouraged other employees to report their personal experiences of harassment using the ethics hotline. She now says she wishes she would have left the company sooner.
Another situation that inspired a Page member to speak up involved an office affair involving a senior executive:
I made the information known only because it was affecting the performance of the company. I deem that kind of extramarital stuff unethical, but many people don’t. But it was affecting the performance of the company and morale and all kinds of things.
He said he would share the information with the media or other influencers rather than using official internal reporting channels.
Yet another PRSA Fellow chose a different path. “I didn’t move forward on it, because I needed more information, but in order for me to get more information I would have exposed what I was trying to find.” This PRSA Fellow did not disclose the specific type of ethical dilemma that she faced, but only that she chose not to pursue the issue.
A few of the PRSA Fellows interviewed also described times when they provided counsel to potential whistleblowers. One PRSA Fellow said she encouraged employees to use resources inside the organization:
One of the directors for a recreation facility in the parks department was unethical, and it was clearly illegal and ultimately was convicted at that time and in jail for it. But there was several people who had access to that information and had witnessed what was going on and actually kept a diary. They came to me because I was a PR person and I strongly suggested that they work within the management team of the parks department and talk to HR and talk to legal counsel and encouraged them to speak the truth and tell them what ultimately was going on and impacting the facility in a negative way.
Another PRSA Fellow, while serving on a nonprofit organization’s board, actually encouraged an employee to report an issue:
I was on the board, and we heard directly from an employee of things that were happening in the organization. And I honestly considered really calling the ethics line and saying I think this needs to be investigated. And I actually asked the employee, have you called the ethics line and asked for this to be investigated? And the employee felt that if she did that there would be retaliation against her…I brought it to the chair of the board and then the investigation was conducted that way.
Sometimes the publicity that comes from experience as a whistleblower has led others to reach out for counsel:
One of the things that I didn’t know was going to happen was once I became known as a whistleblower the number of people that would contact me. Yeah, so I have provided advice and counsel to numerous people regarding steps they can take, people that I know are good—legal representatives, good employee representatives. I have given them advice on moral courage, because a lot of times these people are being punished for their exposures, and it’s something you have to deal with, because in the government especially it takes a long time for these cases to come to court, sometimes two to three to five years. So that’s a long time for a person to be out of their job, humiliated, being picked on for an ethical disclosure. So it takes a lot of—in my own personal case, a lot of prayer helped, a lot of talking to people I could trust.
Though rare, another Omega tactic as discussed in Chapter 4 was observed—public relations executives leaked information to or tipped the media. One PRSA Fellow said she told reporters to examine her organization’s financial records:
I recommended to members of the news media, suggested to members of the news media to look into financial records and public documents that I knew an organization was withholding and not for the right reasons. The organization had tried to alter or edit an audit to make themselves look better, and it wasn’t the case. So I suggested that they might want to scrutinize certain other available material and match it up and they could connect the dots for themselves, and they did.
Others have chosen to resign when faced with highly unethical behavior in their companies or organizations. One PRSA Fellow said it became increasingly obvious that it was time for her to go. “I did end up retiring younger than I wanted to just because…I just couldn’t live with it anymore. I stayed three years after these guys bought us, but I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
While fear of retaliation or loss of one’s job is a real concern and potential barrier to ethics counsel, one Page Society member said that does not change our obligations:
Too many people focus on keeping their job not doing it. In these situations, you can’t be afraid. You can’t be focused on keeping your job. You focus on doing it. And doing your job means being that voice of reason, having convictions, telling the truth.
Another Page Society member added, “There are worse things than being fired.” In support of that claim, he described his experience working for a company that was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting fraud. While he was not in a senior management role at the time, he said:
I’m not proud of my service there during that era. I’m proud of eight of the other 11 years that I was there. But those were particularly dark days. Even though I wasn’t directly responsible, I bear some of that. And so the notion is that once you start making compromises, it leads you down a dark and very difficult path. Even if you extricate yourself from it later, it’s something that it will either sit on your conscience or quite frankly could inhibit your career down the road. My counsel is speak your truth. Have the guts to do it. You have to be smart about it, and be sensitive and thoughtful and fact based in how you do it. And don’t compromise in those areas, because they can come back to bite you.
Summary
Public relations professionals tend to resort to Omega tactics only when Alpha tactics fail to produce change and when the activity is highly unethical or illegal. Based on their personal accounts, some began their efforts inside the organization, raising concerns to more senior executives or reporting issues to a hotline or ethics committee. When those efforts were unsuccessful, some reached out to members of the board of directors, mentors, government regulatory agencies, or the media. However, those who became whistleblowers did so at a high personal cost. Some lost their jobs, were demoted, or were socially isolated by friends and colleagues. Others chose to resign rather than continue to fight daily ethics battles.
Questions to Ponder
1. Under what type of circumstances did public relations executives resort to “rocking the boat” or whistleblowing?
2. What types of internal resources did the public relations executives mention using to report ethical concerns? What are the limitations associated with those systems?
3. What is moral intensity and how does it influence public relations executives’ likelihood to resort to more drastic measures?