The chapter argues that organizations are viewed with suspicion in democracies because they are surrounded by boundaries and have a propensity to engage in wrongdoing that benefits the organization. Often, this wrongdoing is characterized by a degree of normalization. These are situations where wrongdoing is initiated or endorsed by people in managements positions and occurs at a relatively systematic level within the organization. Such conditions provide a highly complex set of opportunities for whistleblowers. The chapter offers an analysis of normalized wrongdoing as recounted in 14 whistleblower autobiographies. The analysis shows how normalized wrongdoing is prevalent in the sample, but also identifies considerable variation, with individual cases distributed on a continuum that runs from ‘weak’ to ‘strong’ and across a range of intermediate positions.

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Suspicious Organizations

  • Thomas Olesen

摘要

The chapter argues that organizations are viewed with suspicion in democracies because they are surrounded by boundaries and have a propensity to engage in wrongdoing that benefits the organization. Often, this wrongdoing is characterized by a degree of normalization. These are situations where wrongdoing is initiated or endorsed by people in managements positions and occurs at a relatively systematic level within the organization. Such conditions provide a highly complex set of opportunities for whistleblowers. The chapter offers an analysis of normalized wrongdoing as recounted in 14 whistleblower autobiographies. The analysis shows how normalized wrongdoing is prevalent in the sample, but also identifies considerable variation, with individual cases distributed on a continuum that runs from ‘weak’ to ‘strong’ and across a range of intermediate positions.