Antecedents and Outcomes of Retaliation Against Whistleblowers: Gender Differences and Power Relationships

Whistle-blowing represents an influence attempt in which organization member(s) try to persuade other members to cease wrongdoing; sometimes they fail; sometimes they succeed; sometimes they suffer reprisal. We investigated whether women experienced more retaliation than men, testing propositions de...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization science (Providence, R.I.) R.I.), 2008-03, Vol.19 (2), p.221-240
Main Authors: Rehg, Michael T, Miceli, Marcia P, Near, Janet P, Van Scotter, James R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Armies
Blowers
Employees
Forecasts and trends
gender
Gender differences
Gender roles
Gender studies
Lex talionis
Men
Military
Modeling
Organization theory
Power
Power relations
power relationships
retailation
Retaliation
Social theories
Studies
U.S.A
Whistle blowing
Whistleblowing
Whistles
Women
Work place
Working conditions
Workplaces
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Whistle-blowing represents an influence attempt in which organization member(s) try to persuade other members to cease wrongdoing; sometimes they fail; sometimes they succeed; sometimes they suffer reprisal. We investigated whether women experienced more retaliation than men, testing propositions derived from theories about gender differences and power variables, and using data from military and civilian employees of a large U.S. base. Being female was correlated with perceived retaliation. Results of structural equation modeling showed significant gender differences in antecedents and outcomes of retaliation. For men, lack of support from others and low whistleblower's power were significantly related to retaliation; for women, lack of support from others, serious wrongdoing, and the wrongdoing's direct effect on the whistleblower were significantly associated with retaliation. Retaliation in turn was negatively related to relationships with the supervisor for both men and women, and positively related to women's-but not men's-decisions to blow the whistle again, using external channels. We finish by discussing implications for theory and practice.
ISSN:1047-7039
1526-5455
DOI:10.1287/orsc.1070.0310