ATTACHMENT 1 Australia, Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Aus. PIDA) Belgium, September 15, 2013. - Law on the Termination of a Suspected Violation of the Integrity in a Federal Administrative Authority by a Member of his Staff, (Belgium WPA), Bosnia, Law on Whistleblower Protection in the Institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, (Bosnia WPA) (2014) Canada, The […]

INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICES FOR WHISTLEBLOWER POLICIES   November 8, 2015   by Tom Devine, Legal Director, The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a non-profit, nonpartisan public interest law firm that specializes in protection for genuine whistleblowers -- employees who exercise free speech rights to challenge institutional illegality, abuse of power or other betrayals of the […]

"I've spent a period of ‘service’ on society’s boundaries"  Wendy Addison I blew the whistle on corporate corruption fifteen years ago, long before Julian Assange or Edward Snowden made the topic mainstream.  Securing justice after an eleven year battle whilst living in abject poverty has set me free to re build, re authenticate and re […]

“Morality is extolled—even enacted—not with an eye to producing a good and right outcome but in order to appear moral yet still benefit oneself” Research conducted on When Values and Behaviour Conflict asked a group of employees the following questions: “What are your most important moral values?” “What are some recent examples of things that […]

  Myths and Masks of Legislative Policy for Whistleblower Protection and how behavioural insights can assist in creating new standards of best practice. Over the last couple of weeks I participated in two events at opposite ends of the world, paralleled in focusing on whistleblowing and how to protect those who speak out. What became […]

When people have the ability to voice their opinions and have formal processes available to them why do we so often see that they refrain from doing so? Several theories of group behaviour, from Janis’s (1972) groupthink to threat rigidity (Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981), have shown that forces come into play that often limit […]

  Virtue may have its place, but when the executioner's hand is near, weep your victim-hood as softly as you can. As a whistleblower who ‘won’ an eleven year war of attrition and secured justice I have been released from the entrapment of victimhood although I have been victimised.  My work involves tireless campaigning to […]

I attended the StandUpForTruth event at Birbeck University last Monday. http://standupfortruth.org/ A panel of whistleblowers sat on stage sharing their own stories of speaking truth to power and the resultant pain of being punished for doing the right thing and in the public interest. They, like most whistleblowers, including myself had felt unprotected, betrayed and abandoned. The […]

On the 2nd and 3rd of Sept 2015, I attended The International Behavioural Insights Conference in London. Hosted by the UK government’s ‘Nudge Unit’ (Behavioural Insights Team), the event included world renowned speakers such as Steve Pinker, Dan Ariely, Max Bazerman, Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman. I attended because in my experience, both as a […]

Corporate wrongdoing, political scandals, abuse and more are featured regularly and prominently in news reports.  Despite the many publications on ethics research there is still much to be done to acquire a body of knowledge that will impact real-world behaviour.  Because most of us are influenced by those around us when we make moral judgements […]

'Just as the whistleblower defies so many - not only the rest of the company, but the auditors and everyone who accepted the firm while it apparently did well - the whistleblower presents a challenge to us all.' Read the full article here: SpeakOut SpeakUp Whistleblowing as Doing the Right Thing 050615

Why do people assume that truth lies in numbers leading them to default to believing that the majority is probably correct? Majorities benefit from an assumption that they are correct and minorities are motivated to assume that majorities are correct because it permits them to move from ‘deviant’ to ‘belonging’.  Minorities do not have the luxury […]

In the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street, Michael Douglas delivered an Oscar-winning performance as master-of-the-universe Gordon Gekko. An unabashedly greedy corporate raider, Gekko delivered a frequently quoted monologue in which he eloquently describes the culture that has become a caricature of the financial industry Despite the notoriety of this encomium to enlightened self interest, […]

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked” – Warren Buffett In 2008, whilst analysing patterns of ‘bad behaviour’ among bankers caught up in an epic financial crisis, I suggested that financial markets might benefit from a more behaviour-based approach to regulation: More focus on real Human interactions, less on […]

Nietzsche wrote, “arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit, for merit itself is offensive” (1878, Aphorism 332)   While societies may differ on what it means to be moral, they agree that it is good to be so. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests […]

To date, a lot of focus has been placed on analysing the messengers of ‘bad’ news; often those whose quest to be heard results in them having to blow the whistle, often externally. In this blog, I’d like to flip the focus onto the recipients of ‘bad’ news, most often the leaders within organisations and […]

The BARRIERS and LEVERS through which HUMAN BEHAVIOUR is able to EFFECT CHANGE in the WHISTLEBLOWING ARENA Click on the link below to read my full working paper: Goodbye Whistleblowing, Hello Courageous Conversations

Try to imagine yourself as a subject in an Asch experiment.http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html You arrive at the lab together with seven other subjects for what is likely to be a boring experiment. Which line is equal in length to the standard line, pictured on the left? Things go smoothly for three or four trials. You wonder why […]

I want to share good news -  I've recently completed a training program in Berkeley, San Francisco and have partnered with Courageous Leadership, LLC, a consulting firm based the US.  http://speakout-speakup.org/#/training I believe their evidence-based programs could be a wonderful fit for your organisation to support your business objectives of enhancing ethical standards, maintaining integrity and transparency, […]