How is it that at a time of unprecedented focus on leadership and corporate culture — by regulatory authorities, Boards, stakeholders, leadership and management consultants, and a virtual flood of books, articles, degree programs, and big-budget training efforts — stunning organizational and leadership failures continue to take place at the highest levels in both the public and private sectors?[1]

It seems like every week there is a new scandal about ethics and misconduct.

Whether in the political arena or in business, ethical deterioration and violations appear to have become the new normal.[2] The headlines are filled with news of corruption, fraud, class-action lawsuits, individuals coming forward to describe patterns of misconduct at the hands of senior leaders, and a “contagion of mistrust” in business, the tech giants,[3] government, and financial institutions “to do what is right”.[4]

The world is facing a crisis of trust in institutions across all sectors that shows no sign of abating. … I am convinced that corruption both feeds and is fed by the broader crisis of trust, which sustains a vicious cycle that undermines economic health and social cohesion.

– Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (formerly Managing Director, International Monetary Fund)[5]

Rebuilding public trust is a shared responsibility, and each institution must find ways to address societal concerns. In this respect, whistleblower laws and protocols can play a key role in promoting accountability and building trust – supporting an organization’s leadership and culture, surfacing issues and concerns generally and exposing misconduct and illicit activity specifically, and where appropriate providing the impetus for positive cultural and leadership change.

Not surprisingly, unethical conduct and corruption “by its nature” is surreptitious, and “to expose it often requires ordinary people who witness wrongdoing” to step up and report it.[6] Whistleblowing has been key to supporting cultural change and exposing corruption in corporations and government bodies across the world.[7]

[W]histleblowing can be your early warning system – revealing misconduct before it becomes systemic.

– Norton Rose Fulbright[8]

Although there is not an internationally accepted definition of “whistleblower” or “whistleblowing”, it is generally understood to represent any person who reports suspicions of fraud, corruption, bribery, lawbreaking, misconduct, abuse and/or unethical conduct. Such reporting can be internal within a company or government body, or external to law enforcement, a regulatory authority, or the media.[9]

The reporting of wrongdoing is generally considered whistleblowing, regardless of whether it is reported by a public or private employee or to persons inside or outside of the relevant corporate or governmental organization. And “encouraging employees to report wrongdoing (‘or blow the whistle’) – and protecting them when they do – is an important part of corruption prevention in both the public and private sectors. Employees are usually the first to recognize wrongdoing in the workplace, so empowering them to speak up without fear of reprisal can help” organizational leadership – and where appropriate, law enforcement and other regulatory authorities – “both detect and deter violations”.[10]

[T]hose who “raise the alarm” often risk their career and their livelihood and, in some cases, suffer severe and long-lasting financial, health, reputational and personal repercussions. Fear of retaliation dissuades people from coming forward with their concerns. The effective protection of whistleblowers against retaliation is essential to safeguard the public interest … and … promote transparency, accountability and democratic governance.

– European Commission[11]

Big Picture

The importance of whistleblowers and whistleblower protection is “essential to safeguarding the public interest and to promoting a culture of public accountability and integrity”.[12] It is about maintaining – and in some jurisdictions restoring – trust in business and government and our institutions and leaders.

Among a nation’s most precious possessions is the “public trust” of its institutions and their leaders.[13] Business, government, and the financial system thrive on trust, such that a widening “trust deficit” poses a significant risk to society and the public interest.[14]

And the world is indeed facing a crisis of trust in our institutions – across all sectors – that shows no sign of abating, undermining economic health and social cohesion.[15]

As trust and confidence in our institutions has eroded, the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer has confirmed that “pessimism is widespread”,[16] noting that “a pessimistic population” is “increasingly divided on how much to trust the key institutions of” business and government.

Today’s common struggle against corruption goes far beyond compliance. More problematic is the profound and worsening trust deficit that exists between institutions and individuals. The widespread perception that institutions—both public and private—are not acting in the interests of the people they serve pervades the thinking of communities across the globe.

– Corruption and the erosion of trust, World Economic Forum[17]

Cheating, misconduct, deception and other forms of unethical behavior appear to be more widespread in recent years[18] – not just in business and government, but in schools,[19] and sports,[20] and many other arenas.[21] The number of high profile corporate scandals over the last two decades alone – Volkswagen’s ‘DieselGate’, Wells Fargo, Enron, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, the Boeing 737 Max crisis, GM’s deadly ‘Ignition Switch’, Theranos, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Australia’s scandal plagued financial sector, the Panama Papers, etc. – have distressingly exposed widespread unethical conduct, malfeasance, fraud, conflicts-of-interest, preferential treatment, corruption, insider trading, bribes, money laundering, a secretive offshore finance industry (supporting a widespread system of global tax evasion and questionable business deals), price fixing, concealment of evidence, and Ponzi schemes “on an unthinkable scale”.[22] In many of these cases the organization’s leadership set the tone, and the rest followed the ‘unwritten corporate culture’ so that cheating within these organizations became the norm.

These highly publicized scandals come at a cost to the economy and society: fueling distrust in our institutions nationally and around the world[23] they have harmed the public interest and the public trust.  Many people have lost trust and confidence in our institutions,[24] and in the integrity and ethics of business leaders and public figures.[25] When people do not believe that our business and political leaders tell the truth or act ethically, it erodes the basic shared values – the “overlapping consensus” or “common ethical ground” – that traditionally uphold our institutions.[26]

Whistleblower protection is essential to encourage the reporting of misconduct, fraud and corruption. The risk of corruption is significantly heightened in environments where the reporting of wrongdoing is not supported or protected. This applies to both public and private sector environments.

– G20 Anti-Corruption Plan[27]

To some commentators, it appears to be “increasingly evident” that some organizations are “dismissive of the law”, to the point that they may “see the law” today “as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a boundary to work within”.[28]

So what can be done? Leadership and culture – fundamental elements of good management – can catalyze or undermine an organization’s success. Companies and government bodies with a strong leadership focus on ethics and values (i.e. doing the right thing) keep their organizations firmly within the parameters of the law and societal expectations, while building trust, good will, and positive public opinion.

However, to be effective, the culture and leadership must clearly reflect the organization’s values and ethics, and empower personnel at all levels to make the right decisions in light of whether it is right, legal, and fair.[29] Whistleblowers play an important and indispensable role within this worldview – and within an organization’s compliance program[30] – by supporting a “speak up” culture, and strengthening accountability and transparency.

Culture tells us … whether to risk telling our bosses … whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time.

– Harvard Business Review[31]

The success (or failure) of obtaining – or maintaining – an overall culture of integrity begins with the leaders and the tone they set at the top.^[32] If the culture of the organization does not support principled performance and speaking up (but rather the normalization of deviance),[33] then all of the written policies and procedures, people, processes, and technologies that are put in place to mitigate ethics and compliance risks will not be effective.[34] Such organizations are likely to view their ethics and compliance programs as a set of “check the-box activities”, or worse, as a roadblock to achieving their objectives.

A widening “trust deficit” poses catastrophic risks to the financial system, the new chairman of the [Australian] corporate regulator – James Shipton – has warned, as he urged the banks to adopt stronger ethical standards to avoid more intrusive regulation.

– Financial Review[35]

Trust is a critical asset and necessary element of the social fabric – a fragile social construct – that holds our society and its institutions together, and it is generally recognized that we cannot rely on ethical norms and values alone to create trustworthy institutions. As such, we must engage with issues such as transparency, accountability and responsibility by asking questions like:[36]

• How do we detect organizational misconduct when corporations and government are so opaque?
• How do we ensure that corporate and government bodies are not corrupted?
• What is the role of directors, auditors, investors, the government, and the media in creating proper accountability? 
• What can be done to encourage and protect legitimate whistleblowers?

A host of mechanisms and solutions have been considered and discussed over the years, with increasing emphasis on governance (public and private), increased transparency and reporting, and an expanded use of whistleblowing (in terms of incentives to encourage it and law to protect those stepping into the role).[37] As whistleblowers continue to grow as an important part of the societal and compliance landscape worldwide, it is important that a nation’s laws – and an organization’s internal protocols – provide whistleblower protection to encourage and safeguard these individuals and their important role in protecting the public trust.

While whistleblowing alone is not a solution to corruption, it is one of the tools that can improve governance and create ethically and legally healthy organizations and governments.

– Professor David Schultz[38]

Whistleblowers – and whistleblowing programs – in the public and private sectors are key to ethics and compliance management because unethical and illicit conduct generally “happens in the shadows and is notoriously difficult to uncover, investigate and prosecute”.[39]  Individuals situated within an organization may be the only ones – as a result of information control, the hidden nature of illegal activity, and/or the size of the organization – positioned to actually detect, identify and report misconduct, abuse and unethical conduct that may harm the organization, citizens and consumers, the financial system, and/or the community. Numerous large‐scale accounting and financial frauds during the last 20 years, including Enron and WorldCom and Australia’s Royal Commission into the “big four banks”, have exemplified the role of whistleblowers as a crucial mechanism to detect and prevent misconduct and fraud[40]:[41]

“Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government [and corporations are] … doing …. That means knowing that the government [and business are] operating within the constraints of the law. … We need whistle-blowers.”

Whistle-Blowers are the last defence against global corruption. … Whistleblowers are the lifeblood of free societies.

– The Atlantic[42]

However, for whistleblower protections to work in the real world, across society and within organizations, there also needs to be “a shared set of higher principles” – a collective shared understanding of ethics and values and purpose – “beyond power or self-interest or ideology”.[43] Ethics, norms, and unwritten rules of conduct (even those that once seemed immutable), are only as durable as the people who choose to live, or not live, by them”.[44] This is where leadership and a sound organizational culture of integrity comes into play, supporting and empowering personnel at all levels of an organization – even under the most complex and stressful situations – to speak up and/or make the right decisions in light of whether it is right, legal and fair.^[45]

With no shortage of scandals demanding that someone take responsibility – in an environment in which there appears to be limited willingness among Boards, executives or politicians to accept it – whistleblowers may well be society’s “canaries in the mineshaft” trying to figure out what to do in extraordinarily difficult ethical situations.[46]

From the political arena to some of the world’s biggest companies, scandals exposed by whistleblowers have driven a succession of news cycles in recent years.

– Nelson Pratt[47]

Introduction

The question of what holds a society together is, without any doubt, extraordinarily complex. As I have noted before,[48] societies are undone in many ways, not all of them obvious. The decline in ethics and values and civility and social cohesion – a nation’s societal credentials if you will – explains much about what we are seeing happening in the world today, in particular the loss of trust in business, government, the financial system, and possibly democracy itself.[49] Professor John Rawls, widely considered the most important political philosopher of the 20^th century, noted that our pluralistic democratic societies need an “overlapping consensus” (a common ethical ground if you will) to be stable.[50]

The Panama Papers [was] the biggest leak in Whistleblower history. … [A] gargantuan collection of leaked documents exposing a widespread system of global tax evasion. … [T]he scandal … has already touched … business executives and world leaders.

– Andy Greenberg, Wired[51]

A robust society requires its leaders and the majority of its people to believe in and practice basic ethical values that serve the long-term health of organizations and society, the failure of which inevitably leads to disrupted nations characterized by: toxic polarization, reduced trust in traditional institutions, falling social mobility, income and wealth inequality, misconduct, insufficient accountability and governance, and a degraded system of ‘big money’ politics, influence and favours. Without a common ethical consensus, “actions that have always been thought of as ‘not okay’ are slowly reclassified as ‘okay’ over a period of time”, such that the rules of the game become altered through the normalization of deviance[52] to benefit the few to the detriment of the many, exacerbating the “trust deficit”[53] and the risk to the public interest and society.

Ethics can’t be extracurricular with businesspeople. Unless ethics becomes central to the vocation of business, we’re in trouble.

– Restoring Faith in Business, Medium[54]

Make no mistake, the purpose of government and business is to serve society – and their leaders must prepare their people, their organizations, and possibly their nations for an increasingly challenging future. In the face of these challenges, we need business and government leaders with ambitious vision and character beyond accumulating power, capital, or votes (as the case may be). We need true leaders with a strong commitment to organizational values, ethical leadership and accountability, who can use their privileged positions to inspire millions of people – within their organizations, nationally and worldwide – by doing the right thing, the right way.[55] To get ahead of false narratives that undermine the essence of our institutions:[56]

“There is no question that leaders must set the tone, establish the culture, and get buy-in to the organization’s values and beliefs. Whether in business or government it is imperative we hold our leaders accountable. The higher a position the more an individual is ‘on display’.”

The lack of ethics has become a household norm. Whether it be in the political arena from which it is blatantly absent or in business, ethical violations have become the new normal. … [E]verywhere we turn today there are signs of ethical deterioration.

– Richard Bowen, The Fall of an American Icon[57]

The breadth and nature of high-profile corporate and government scandals and well-publicized corruption is staggering. Ethical misconduct is hardly uncommon today with venerable leaders, companies and governments being dogged by mounting criticism of prioritizing financial or political gain over ethics and laws.[58] The number of headline grabbing scandals^[59] that have damaged or cratered organizations, reputations, and careers – across disparate business sectors and industries and governments – illustrate the importance of a robust culture and integrity in corporate and government leadership: [60]

“Just about every day there is a new case of corporate malfeasance – bribery, tax evasion, price-fixing, defrauding of government or consumers, environmental violations, unfair labor practices and much more. Given the frequency of these scandals, it is difficult to keep track of which corporation has done what.”

What has caused such unethical malignancy and antipathy? Has our value systems changed completely? Is the narrative no longer about “who you are” but rather “what you are” financially “worth” – and if yes, is it surprising that on this slippery slope ethics and values may be perceived as having little importance (if not in fact ‘non-productive’) in that type of “value system”?[61] The answer to these questions provides important lessons^[62] for corporate and government leaders – and if the opportunity is not permitted to slip away into history, may offer a roadmap for organizations going forward in respect to leadership, governance, corporate culture, and accountability:[63]

“Malfeasance and unethical behaviour remains deeply entrenched in business [and government]. The pervasive cheating, misconduct, and unethical behavior – and the apparent normalization of this corporate [and government] deviance – has led to an increasing demand by the public for not only accountability, but also improvement in the standards of ethical behaviour, both in business and public life.

Corporate [and government] misconduct is no longer limited to just impacting the applicable individual or organization itself (if it ever was), but has significant ramifications to the economy and society – adding to people’s fears and fueling distrust in business and our institutions nationally and around the world.”

In general terms, a whistleblower is a person with information, usually gained from his or her employment, concerning illegal or unethical activities or misconduct within an organisation, and who reports that information.

– Promontory[64]

In an age where information is tightly controlled by governments and business – and their “image-makers, spin doctors and gatekeepers” – real scandal can often only be revealed with the help of whistleblowers.[65] Some of the most ignoble corporate and government scandals of the past two decades were heralded by whistleblowers: Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, and the Trump-Ukraine scandal are some of the most explosive examples. And unfortunately in some cases, these whistleblowers faced punishment for calling attention to internal fraud and alleged misdeeds by senior leadership within the organizations.[66]

How would a global company build a big enough bureaucracy to ensure that all 100,000 employees in its operating companies worldwide follow each and every law and regulation?  Even further, how could the CEO of that company be assured that his or her people were acting according to the even higher standard of behavior demanded by its stakeholder community? The answer?  They can’t. … This is the moment to rethink how we operate, how we govern, how we lead and how we relate to society.

– Dov Seldman[67]

According to the Harvard Business Review, “whistleblowers—and large numbers of them—are crucial to keeping organizations healthy” and that functioning internal hotlines are of paramount importance to an organization’s culture and success. Looking at the business world for example, companies “that are more active in using their” internal ‘whistleblower’ reporting “systems tend to be more profitable (as measured by return on assets) than firms that are less active users of their systems”.[68] And those organizations that supported and “actively” used their internal reporting systems faced fewer material lawsuits and had lower settlement amounts than organizations undermining, ignoring, or minimally using them:[69] 

“Many companies continue to ignore – or misuse – whistleblower hotlines, and most don’t know what [to] make of the information that is provided through them. …

We saw a few common characteristics in our research. … [W]e found that firms with more powerful management – e.g., firms with governance protocols that limit shareholder power relative to firm leadership – are less likely to actively use their internal reporting systems. Fast-growing companies are also less likely to use their internal reporting systems, as are firms that show signs of potential earnings misstatements. …

In … discussions with compliance officers at firms, many executive leadership teams stated a ‘goal’ to have zero reports. This is not hard to accomplish if you simply don’t make your employees aware of the system or comfortable using it. There is evidence that this is often the case: In 2014, Bruckhaus Deringer found that nearly 30% of managers in their survey reported that their company actively discourages whistleblowing.”

In light of this information, it may not be surprising that in surveys “a significant proportion of respondents said that the average employee would expect to see their career damaged if they blew the whistle”.[70]

But with many countries offering explicit legal protection for whistleblowers, are they right?[71]

Several countries, including the US and UK, now have laws that protect whistleblowers from disciplinary or retaliatory action from their employers. But a high proportion of respondents said they thought the average employee would fear reprisals – or even lose their job – if they blew the whistle.

– Fair Game or Foul Play? Global Whistleblowing Survey 2014[72]

Whistleblowing – a primer

Whistle-blowing is the act of reporting fraud, corruption, bribery, lawbreaking, corporate tax evasion and “aggressive” avoidance, damage to people’s health and the environment, misconduct, abuse and unethical conduct. Reporting any act of wrongdoing is considered whistleblowing, regardless if it’s reported by a public or private employee or to persons inside or outside of the relevant organization.[73] Unfortunately, this can endanger careers and livelihoods, and in some extreme cases, lives.[74] Not surprisingly in this environment, whistleblower protection – in the form of guaranteed confidential reporting and anti-retaliation protections – is important to encourage whistleblower reporting and facilitate the detection of misconduct that may otherwise remain undetected, undermining society’s institutions (including the financial system and economy).

Laws, with various levels of strength, are meant to protect whistleblowers from reprisals, and executives and government officials who violate protective statutes may be disciplined or terminated. Anyone can report wrongdoing, but the level of protection an employee will receive will differ depending on whether they’re public or private, to whom they report, the manner in which they report, the type of wrongdoing they report, and the law under which they report.[75] In most jurisdictions across the world that have whistleblower laws, the vast majority of such “protections are only extended to public sector employees. As a result, considerable segments of the workforce have little to no legislative protection from employer reprisal. In many countries, including Canada, only a limited portion of the private sector is afforded a secure channel or process whereby it can expose corruption”.[76]

The perils of whistleblowing were in the spotlight recently when U.S. President Donald Trump lambasted the anonymous accuser who suggested the leader acted inappropriately when it came to the country’s dealings with the Ukraine. … This kind of reaction by a leader may explain why 42 per cent of Canadian employees say they fear being ‘outed’ as a whistleblower, while 39 per cent fear retaliation and 38 per cent fear losing their job.

– HR Reporter[77]

There is widespread recognition about the ethical or right thing to do – report wrongdoing – but there are a number of major impediments to actually doing so, in particular the significant risk of retaliation such as: disclosure and isolation, negative performance evaluations, undesirable job assignments, character assassination and defamation, and even termination (job loss).[78]  Reporting wrongdoing or challenging the status quo may threaten a person’s status and relationships with senior leaders, supervisors and coworkers[79] and may even lead to criminal charges.[80]  

Whistleblowers clearly play an important and indispensable role in society, yet “blowing the whistle” can be a thankless job. It is reported that more than a third of respondents who reported wrongdoing – and were identified as the source – were either threatened with or received a reprisal as a result:[81]

“Whistleblowing can take a substantial emotional toll, too. One 2018 analysis in the Netherlands found that ‘whistleblowers were significantly more at risk for severe mental-health problems, poor global health, and worsening health’ than other population-based groups.

Many also indicated that whistleblowing had a ‘severe and negative effect’ on work; income; and relationships with ex-colleagues, partners and children, according to the research, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Reports.

‘Those risks are higher when you’re in a place with a bad culture that does not support whistleblowing,’ Jennifer Pacella, an assistant professor of law at Baruch College, told MarketWatch.”

Blowing the whistle is associated with many stressors or loss of resources such as retaliation, job loss and severe financial problems, stressful legal processes, serious relational problems with the partner (divorce), children, and (ex-)colleagues, and severe mental health problems. … severe depression or anxiety 84%; feelings of isolation or powerlessness, 84%; distrust of others, 78%.

– A Comparative Study, Psychological Reports[82]

Not surprisingly, potential whistle-blowers might wonder if it is worth stepping forward to report wrongdoing in light of the potential financial, legal, and retaliatory implications – although some employees have a duty to disclose arising out of their employment or as a result of a duty imposed by a regulatory body (i.e. in-house lawyers)[83]:[84]

“As a profession, we have not yet been able to figure out how to identify, manage and prevent retaliation…. That’s the common theme through all of the various changes, regulations and directives we’re seeing. And these changes are happening all around the world. Increasingly, there is a demand for policies and processes to be codified within an organization’s standard operating procedures. When there is a lack of trust, consistency and transparency become critical.

New legislative and regulatory changes in some jurisdictions are now attempting to restore this trust. The European Union’s new whistleblower directive, set to take effect in 2021, is arguably the most comprehensive of these efforts. The directive seeks to provide a normalized set of requirements across the EU and advance a common understanding of appropriate reporting channels for every company with over 50 employees, as well as municipalities and public institutions. It will obligate affected organizations to create or update their reporting channels, ban all forms of retaliation, and shift the burden of proof to employers whenever retaliation is alleged. …

Meanwhile, changes to Australia’s Corporations Act, which took effect July 1, 2019, have encouraged whistleblowing in that country by defining who is eligible to submit and receive reports. The changes also enhance identity and legal protections for whistleblowers, enabling them to submit a report anonymously for the first time. Corporations found to be causing detriment to, or disclosing the identity of, a whistleblower face penalties of up to $1 million. 

Another major whistleblowing guidepost is in development: ISO 37002, which is expected to be issued in 2021. Essentially, this will be a tool to ensure an organization’s [internal] whistleblowing systems and processes meet best practices and are built around trust, impartiality and protection. ‘Its main aim is to provide guidance on how a whistleblowing management system can help you to become, and be seen as, a responsive organization,’ asserts Wim Vandekerckhove, chairman of the ISO 37002 committee. ‘That is what drives trust; that is what makes trust grow inside of an organization’.”

These types of laws – and internal whistleblower protocols – will make it easier to detect and prevent unethical and illegal activities within organizations, improve corporate culture and leadership, and increase public trust.

We do not need to know the name or the motivation of whistleblowers. All we need is the name of the law or policy that was broken, evidence that it was broken, protection for the whistleblower and due process for the accused.

– Roy Snell[85]

The whistleblowing landscape has changed substantially over the past few years, and high profile corporate and government scandals have spurred these new whistleblower protection laws across the globe.[86] 

However, all is not golden. For example, with some exceptions,[87] Canada’s weak whistleblower laws – at the Federal and provincial level – are said to leave many individuals (particularly employees) exposed to retribution, particularly private employees. The U.S. based Government Accountability Project “rates many democratic countries’ protections as a metal or cardboard shield — insufficient, but offering some safety to whistleblowers. Canada is the only country out of 60 they examined that fails to meet every single one of the 20 criteria his organization uses to judge protections”, sometimes referred to as “a tissue paper shield” they are an “object of ridicule globally among international whistleblower organizations”.[88] For Canada, a “uniform system intended to protect all employees in both sectors of the economy is preferable to the current fragmented arrangement”.[89]

In the U.S., both at the Federal and State level there are whistleblower and anti-retaliation laws to protect public and private sector employees from retaliation. These whistle-blowing laws were enacted to encourage employees to report fraud, waste, and abuse in government agencies and public companies. However, not all U.S. states have comprehensive laws covering private-sector employees.[90]

As well – as seen by the most recent scandal involving the current U.S. President – with respect to U.S. federal laws protecting whistleblowers from retaliation, “it’s not clear that those laws would prohibit the president” of the United States “from doing so”.[91] Experts note that the current U.S. president’s conduct in respect to a whistleblower – who had raised potential issues of misconduct that appeared to impact this powerful and influential leader directly – may do “lasting damage to a whistleblowing system set up to keep the powerful in check and provide a safe way of exposing the wrongdoing of America’s politicians and government officials”.[92] As a result, there is an unfortunate appearance that “the most powerful institutions in” American “society” may be the “least accountable”[93] at this point in time:[94]

“President Trump … has stepped up his assault on the anonymous federal employee, who disclosed a phone call in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president for a ‘favor’ – to investigate political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden.

‘It’s a kill-the-messenger approach,’ said Jackie Garrick, founder of Whistleblowers of America, a volunteer support organization. ‘That’s what retaliation is all about – character assassination.’ …

The president has … faced criticism from people who say they’re endangering the whistleblower. That’s what worries Andrew Bakaj, co-counsel for the whistleblower. He said he’s increasingly fearful for his client and upset by the rhetoric used by [President] Trump, his supporters and public officials. He said death threats have been directed at the whistleblower and attorneys, prompting them to take security measures.”

[President] Trump’s attacks on whistleblower could do lasting damage to [the] system, experts say … a chilling effect on others who want to come forward about wrongdoing. …  ‘Whistleblowers are a check and balance of last resort,” said Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on accounting fraud at Enron. ‘To me, when we seek out the messenger, the whistleblower, we’re doing the wrong thing. The more we persecute them, ruin their lives, let their name [be published] … it is concerning to me we will wipe away this check and balance of last resort’.

– The Guardian[95]

Legal protections may work for a while, but many experts suggest that employees who speak out about abuse or misconduct usually pay the price, professionally and personally – particularly if senior leadership undermines the process or otherwise takes retaliatory action against a whistleblower (i.e. Barclays bank was recently fined $15 million by a regulator in respect to attempts by its CEO and senior management to unmask a whistleblower).[96] It has been reported that many whistleblowers end up shunned and isolated:[97]

“ ‘Many regret what they did,’ said C. Fred Alford, a professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland who has studied whistleblowers. …  ‘And they never recover from what they’ve learned about the world’.”

Be forewarned: Your personal and professional lives will suffer. New research on state whistle-blower lawsuits shows it’s likely you’ll be fired and will lose your case. But then, doing the right thing never meant that right things would happen to you.

– Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine[98]

Culture is central to the restoration and maintenance of good conduct.^[99]  But, an organization’s culture – with a strong compliance and whistleblower program – must be built like any other critical program^[100] that is committed to addressing risk and preventing workplace retaliation:[101]

“Regulators and enforcement authorities around the world are progressively of the view that an ethical and compliant business culture is one of the most important tasks for corporate boards and C-suite executives. In this environment, companies must ensure they have sustainable cultures of integrity that empower personnel at all levels to make the right decisions in light of whether it is right, legal, and fair.”

And how is this done? Leadership is the critical element of an appropriate ‘speak-up’ environment and culture – in defining, communicating, and embedding appropriate attitudes, values, and standards of behaviour. Leadership and culture provide the principal checks on conduct, and leadership sets the parameters of what is acceptable and unacceptable:  “behaviour within an organization is ultimately guided by the explicit and implicit messages that leaders communicate, through what they say and what they do”.[102]

And yes, governance and culture are a priority as drivers of behaviour, but it is incumbent upon senior leadership to drive and monitor cultural change. Leadership is critical in successfully pursuing cultural change, however, such leadership should be exercised at many levels within the organization – and in fact, efforts to support and require cultural renewal will only be successful if properly directed by all leadership and management levels of an organization from front-line supervisors to mid-level managers to senior leaders.^[103]

For the 21^st century, in order to implement a sustainable ethics and compliance program that is truly effective in shifting behaviour and mitigating risk, corporate leadership should look at moving from a strict “governance, risk and compliance” mindset to a “governance, culture and leadership” mindset.

– Corporate Culture, Leadership, and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century^[104]

Appropriate change programs focused on culture must include comprehensive communications plans, socially-desirable purpose statements that emphasize support for customers/clients or broader society, and a proactive and systematic assessment of the role culture plays with respect to risk, conduct and compliance.^[105] In organizations with strong effective cultures, leaders generally do the following four things:^[106]

“1. Define it clearly at a behavioral level. Get really clear on what you want the culture to be. Be sure to get down to the day to day behaviors that are acceptable or not acceptable to support that culture. Then you have to live them at all cost as visible leaders in the company.

2. Build it into everything that happens in the company. This is about embedding culture into everything from how you interview new people to how you evaluate performance on the people you have to how you reward people.
3. Teach it to people. If there are critical behaviors and skills people need to make the culture work, formally invest in learning programs to build that skill set. Don’t assume that people can translate what is on the wall to their day to day work environment.
4. Review it regularly. Without attention, culture can slip and migrate all over the place. Review it at a quarterly business review just like you’d review your critical business strategies.”

Empty value statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers and citizens, and undermine leadership and managerial credibility.[107] Identifying and understanding this is the first step. Strong organizations are successful at getting their people to own the vision and their culture. As this happens, employees – and yes, even the leaders themselves – become more engaged and committed to doing their part to serve the purpose of the organization.[108] This is the path.[109]

Effective whistleblower programs, capable of receiving and responding to disclosures from whistleblowers in an efficient and effective way, and of protecting them from inappropriate retaliation, are a critical element of modern corporate governance and risk management frameworks.

– Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks[110]

Organizational Culture and Whistleblower Protocols

An emphasis by leadership on “fitting in” and “going along” will not be helpful in today’s fast moving world. It is more important than ever that people at every level of an organization feel free to speak up, share information, contribute expertise, and issue potential warnings. Yet the simple truth is that people will do none of these things if they feel psychologically unsafe. The chief job of every leader then is to create an environment in which people feel a sense of common purpose, belonging, and engagement that empowers and enables them to surface both their best ideas and major concerns and issues.[111]

This type of strong organizational culture has more favourable ethics outcomes,[112] and you will know you have the winning formula when your leadership and corporate culture provides personnel at all levels of the organization the authority, safety and support “to stand in front of the train of fast-moving” events and do the right thing.^[113]

Poor management of whistleblowers can lead to financial loss, significant reputational damage and loss of trust.

– Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks[114]

In companies with strong leadership and ethics programs, 93% of employees reported misconduct, and 94% of those who reported misconduct were satisfied with the outcome. In these organizations the leadership team and organizational culture were aligned with and in strong support of whistleblower programmes as a tool to keep leadership in the loop and appropriately address misconduct at a levels.[115]  On the other hand, in companies without ethics programs, only 34% of the employees reported misconduct and only 20% of employees who reported misconduct were satisfied. Why? Because whistle-blowers “were retaliated against, demoted, transferred, or ostracized. As a result, employees at these” organizations “saw what happened to their colleagues and didn’t want to suffer the same treatment. These employees knew that management really didn’t want employee feedback”[116]:[117]

“Companies initiate E&C [Ethics and Compliance] programs for a variety of reasons. Sometimes an act of wrongdoing has taken place, awakening leaders to the need for a formal effort to prevent similar incidents going forward. At times, regulatory or legal requirements heighten the need for an organization to initiate a program. In other instances, leaders want to promote a standard of conduct to guide everyday employee actions and behaviors related to E&C simply because they believe it to be important for the success of the business.

For many years, the de facto standard for an ‘effective’ E & C program was the bare minimum – compliance with the law.”

The book … recounts a number of … whistleblower incidents. … Among the disturbing feature of this account is the disturbing frequency with which certain names recur: Citigroup, JP Morgan, Barclays, UBS, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, among others. As [author Tom] Mueller reports, ‘wrongdoing at the big banks is massive and repeated’.

– Book Review: Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in the Age of Fraud[118]

The culture of an organization is the expression of its values in action.^[119] In a business environment where reputational threats lurk around every corner, strong leadership, a compelling corporate vision, and a robust culture supportive of values, integrity (ethics), accountability and “doing the right thing” is the foundation of a sustainable and successful organization. The historical lessons learned related to scandals and organizational crises across the globe make one thing clear: without strong leadership and an ethical and values based culture, organizations will always be at risk.[120]

Embedding a strong culture and cultivating good conduct is the key to building (or after a crisis, restoring) trust and reputational capital.^[121] What does a sound culture look like? Deloitte, and organizations like the Global Risk Institute^[122], observe that such cultures are generally characterized by:^[123]

• Organizational values: A set of clear values that, among other things, emphasizes the organization’s commitment to legal and regulatory compliance, integrity, and business ethics. 
• Tone at the top: Executive leadership and senior managers across the organization encourage employees and business partners to behave legally and ethically, and in accordance with compliance and policy requirements.
• Consistency of messaging: Operational directives and business imperatives align with the messages from leadership related to ethics and compliance.
• Middle managers who carry the banner: Front-line and mid-level supervisors turn principles into practice. They often use the power of stories and symbols to promote ethical behaviors.
• Comfort speaking up: Employees across the organization are comfortable coming forward with legal, compliance, and ethics questions and concerns without fear of retaliation.^[124]
• Accountability: Senior leaders hold themselves and those reporting to them accountable for complying with the law and organizational policy, as well as adhering to shared values or organizational values.
• The hire-to-retire life cycle: The organization recruits and screens employees based on character, as well as competence. The on-boarding process steeps new employees in organizational values, and mentoring also reflects those values. Employees are well-treated when they leave or retire, creating colleagues for life.
• Incentives and rewards: The organization rewards and promotes people based, in part, on their adherence to ethical values. It is not only clear that good behavior is rewarded, but that bad behavior (such as achieving results regardless of method) can have negative consequences.
• Procedural justice: Internal matters are adjudicated equitably at all levels of the organization. Employees may not always agree with decisions, but they will accept them if they believe a process has been fairly administered.

All organizations are constrained by law and social expectations of ethical behavior. Compliance-based programs address the first constraint but not the latter. Compliance-based programs govern compulsory behavior, i.e. behavior determined by law. Values-based programs … are generally associated with development of higher standards of behaviour through shared values.

– Report on Governance Structures for Values and Ethics[125]

As noted by Howard Whitton, a director of the Ethicos Group, “nothing will happen in terms of culture unless whistleblowers” – as well as employees generally who simply speak up in the normal course of their duties within the organization – “are, in practice, defended, supported, rewarded, encouraged. That will mean there needs to be a very significant change of mindset among directors and senior officials at companies, along the lines of recognising that whistleblowers are a kind of independent regulator, and an asset”.[126] Yes trust can be lost, but with the right steps trust can be earned and it can be regained[127]:[128]

“Having whistleblower protocols in place … can help maintain the integrity of findings and minimize disruptions and potential reputational damage.

Implementing a pre-established company [or government] policy which determines the formation of a response team and describes the initial steps taken in response is invaluable. This can help avert critical mistakes in the early stages and lay the groundwork for a successful investigation. It is important for a response team to refrain from any overt inquiries or confrontations prior to a discreet initial assessment of the facts. In addition to making a preliminary assessment of the [whistleblower] allegations, responders must also carefully evaluate additional reporting obligations presented by their regulatory environment.

During the initial stages, actions must be taken to ensure the preservation of relevant documents to establish a paper trail and to anticipate local regulations likely to apply. Documenting allegations and associated information in a time-stamped and verifiable format, such as email, should be considered at a minimum.

Prior to engaging with external investigators or tasking an internal investigation, a basic assessment of the whistleblower’s allegations must establish which matters can and should be subject to an investigation. Discretion is critical to any investigation, so identifying in advance which aspects of an allegation may be impossible to verify or which patently lack credibility, will help establish the appropriate scope of an investigation and mitigate unnecessary collateral damage.

Upon determining that the whistleblower allegations are minimally credible and potentially verifiable, a validation process must be established through the use of investigative resources in the form of in-house audit functions, or by external parties such as outside counsel or an investigations specialist. At times, all three may need to be engaged simultaneously.

Engaging with an investigations firm that understands the unique challenges and special considerations associated with a whistleblower response is important to achieving a positive outcome. Investigators with whistleblower response experience will know how to protect the integrity of the process by focusing the investigation on the validation of facts, without compromising the anonymity of whistleblowers or raising concerns about retaliation.”

Accountability: a business answer to a world in crisis. … However, the evolution of “purpose-led” business depends on reimagining accountability. To whom should business leaders be accountable – and for what?

– Robert Phillips[129]

Good governance and supervision should be maintained at the core, but the governance, conduct and risk management frameworks should be designed to have enterprise-wide penetration, and with direct lines to the executive.^[130] As noted in the Harvard Business Review, corporations – as well as government bodies – can reduce the risks of illegal and unethical conduct, reinforce ethical conduct as a core value, and enhance the organization’s reputation as a good corporate citizen by considering a comprehensive program that includes:[131]

• Establishing an ethics committee of the board or relevant level of government (as the case may be): Strategic compliance and ethics starts with the tone at the top. To avoid a diffusion of responsibility, the leadership level should designate a committee with responsibility for the organization’s culture of integrity and for creating a robust program of controls and processes to promote ethical conduct and compliance. This could be the audit or ethics and compliance committee, or an influential government department to address evolving risks and challenges. The committee or department should be charged with working with the top leadership team and “should be specially trained in measuring an ethical culture and have the demonstrated ability and moral courage to take responsibility for mistakes”, protect whistleblowers, “and to call out suspicious behavior”.
• Appointing a high-ranking chief ethics and compliance officer (CECO) – and similar role for government – to take day-to-day operational responsibility for an organization’s ethics and compliance program. The CECO should have knowledge of applicable law, ethical theory, and the science of unethical behavior – and should also possess active listening skills and demonstrated good judgment. This individual should report to the board’s ethics and compliance committee (and similar leadership level in government) – and should feel secure reporting on the integrity program’s effectiveness without fear of retaliation.
• Establishing and posting online ethical and compliance standards and procedures to prevent, detect, and remedy illegal or unethical conduct. Well-crafted and organization-specific mission statements and codes of conduct are critical to educating senior leaders, managers, and employees about the organization’s core values, standards, and procedures. The code of conduct should be simple, easy for employees to understand, refer to values that will resonate with employees, and contain straightforward, relatable, and authentic examples. The code needs to be continuously and creatively reiterated and supported by leadership and management so that it becomes part of the fabric of the organization. 
• Promoting quality and safety with clear escalation policies. 
• Developing measurable integrity performance indicators, reward good behavior, and do not create misaligned incentives. Every job description should include explicit ethical expectations (including the obligation to report misconduct and a ban on retaliation). And, the alignment of financial incentives matter.  The Boston Consulting Group found that the CEOs of public companies recently found guilty of fraud had received stock options in the years before the fraud occurred that were worth eight times what CEOs of compliant firms were granted.
• Applying due care in hiring C-suite executives and senior government officials. Corporate and government leaders should ensure that the officers they appoint to run the organization are honorable and of high moral character. Four key character traits correlated with successful and ethical leaders are integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion.  It is critical to conduct thorough background, criminal history, and conflicts-of-interest checks.
• Mandating interactive training to communicate the ethical and compliance standards to all employees and members of the leadership team (including Boards and elected government leaders). 
• Ensuring there is not retaliation to employees stepping up and speaking up. Whistleblowers are the “canaries in the mineshaft.” The board and government leaders should ensure that their organizations have a well-publicized reporting system, so employees can report (anonymously or confidentially if they choose) ethical, legal, and compliance concerns. 
• Applying the rules evenly across entire organization. When misconduct is detected, the board or senior government leaders must ensure that the organization takes appropriate steps to respond -regardless of the offender’s rank or influence. Treating offenders equally enhances organizational justice – the employees’ perception of fairness in an organization. According to the Corporate Executive Board, of all the indicators of an ethical culture, organizational justice has the most significant impact on maintaining ethical behavior. 
• Being prepared for compliance failures.  Compliance failures and ethical lapses are “predictable surprises.” After an offence has been detected, the board or senior government leaders must take all reasonable steps to stop the misconduct and to prevent further offences – including making any necessary modifications to its compliance and ethics programs, culture and/or leadership and management teams.

Just as conduct within a firm is heavily influenced by what is seen to be rewarded, failure to penalize individuals involved, as well as managers in charge, for ethically or legally questionable behaviours supports its perpetuation and can foster a culture of impunity.

– Deloitte, Managing Conduct Risk[132]

Conclusion

Society benefits from enhanced whistleblower protection.

Unethical behaviour, illegal conduct, and corruption – in fact or perception – can weaken the foundations of a healthy company, government body, our institutions and our economy by degrading social norms and undermining public trust. As recently discussed by Professor Rhode, Christine Lagarde, and others, when unethical conduct and cheating is rewarded and when certain segments of society are seen to play by different rules, trust will give way to cynicism, and social cohesion and economic health will crumble.[133]

[T]he 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a pessimistic population increasingly divided on how much to trust the key institutions of … government, business and NGOs.

– Polarization spikes as Canadians seek institutions in which they can trust[134]

Unfortunately, in both the private and public sectors, not all leaders are created equal.[135] It is important to understand that just because someone holds a position of leadership, does not mean they should. It does not matter how intelligent, affable, persuasive, or savvy a person is, if they are prone to rationalizing unethical behavior, they will eventually fall prey to their own undoing, ultimately damaging the organization and its stakeholders. Optics over ethics is not a formula for success.[136] In this context, Ernst & Young’s recent Global Fraud Survey provided a powerful (and frightening) insight when it published the finding that – from its survey population of over 2,800 senior executives from across the world – almost half of the respondents acknowledged they could justify unethical behaviour and misconduct to meet financial targets[137]:[138]

“There is an old joke about an executive looking to hire a new accountant. He asks each candidate: ‘What is one plus one?’ The winner answers: ‘What do you want it to be?’…

Accounting fraud goes to the heart of the markets. Investors rely on financial statements to assess the future prospects of a company and expect one plus one will equal two. Any indication that the numbers were fudged puts at risk the trust investors have ….”

[C]orrupt and unethical behaviour by leaders – in both the private and corporate sectors – have created a level of criticism from the public that is unprecedented.

–  Policy Paper, Gov.UK[139]

This must be seen as deeply concerning for Boards, governments, corporate stakeholders, and policymakers – the practical result being the erosion of the public trust in business and their leadership, and potentially threatening corporate sustainability, financial institutions, and the economy.[140] Corruption, misconduct and unethical behaviour within business and government has been justifiably described as “a cancer” that undermines trust in all of our institutions.[141]

Whistleblowers fear personal and institutional liability. … When whistleblowers who overwhelmingly are loyal to the company remain “silent observers,” you lose.

– The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth[142]

Whistleblower laws and protocols are important tools of good governance,[143] and – in conjunction with strong leadership and corporate culture[144] – whistleblowers are increasingly viewed as instruments by which unethical conduct and wrongdoing can be diminished. Why? Because whistleblowers can reveal information that would otherwise go undetected or unreported.[145] These individuals, “sometimes at great cost to themselves”, may be the best positioned to actually detect misconduct taking place behind “closed doors” or in “the dark corners” of organizations where unethical individuals may be otherwise able to continue to “operate in secret”.[146] Numerous studies have concluded that “there is no substitute for the perceptiveness and acuity of the individual” whistleblowers when it comes to discovering misconduct and “the presence of economic crime” within organizations.[147]

And whistleblowing is most effective when it operates within a “speak up” culture where employees are actively encouraged to raise their concerns without fear. In such organizations problems “are likely to be aired earlier and can be addressed long before they develop into crisis-management issues” and become a reputation damaging scandal.[148]

The vast majority of managers mean to run ethical organizations, yet corporate corruption is widespread. Part of the problem … is that some leaders are out-and-out crooks, and they direct the malfeasance from the top. But that is rare. Much more often … employees bend or break ethics rules because those in charge are blind to unethical behavior and may even unknowingly encourage it.

– Harvard Business Review[149]

Instead of being forced to remain silent due to fear of retaliation or cynicism, whistleblowers should be protected as an invaluable asset to an organization in exposing unethical conduct and corruption that undermines an organization’s own interests and the public trust.[150] Numerous studies confirm that “strong laws and policies should exist to protect and encourage whistleblowers”.[151]

That is the message leaders need to deliver. And that is how they must act as well.

Eric Sigurdson

Endnotes:

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[1] Sally Helgesen, Best Business Books 2019: Talent & Leadership, Strategy + Business, November 5, 2019; Tim Robinson, Blowing whistle on dirty money ‘wrecked my life’, BBC News, October 28, 2019.

[2] Richard Bowen, The Fall of an American Icon, LinkedIn, November 11, 2019. Also see, Marianne Jennings, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How to Spot Moral Meltdowns in Companies … Before It’s Too Late, T. Martin’s Press MacMillan Publishers, 2006; Deborah Rhode, When is lying or cheating justifiable?, Big Think.com, December 1, 2017; Deborah Rhode, Why do people lie? The reason athletes cheat, Donald Trump avoids taxes and VW fiddled its vehicle emissions, Mirror.co.uk, January 16, 2018; Deborah Rhode, Cheating: Ethics and Law in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, October 2017.

[3] Emily Ackew, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie says data still not safe from tech giants like Facebook, ABC News (abc.net.au), August 9, 2019; Emanuel Moss and Jacob Metcalf, The Ethical Dilemma at the Heart of Big Tech Companies, Harvard Business Review, November 14, 2019; Adela Suliman, Big tech – too big to fail, says data whistleblower Wylie, Reuters, November 21, 2019; Molly McHugh, Whistleblowers Are the Agents of Change in the Tech Industry, Ringer, December 4, 2018; Sally Helgesen, Best Business Books 2019: Talent & Leadership, Strategy + Business, November 5, 2019; Paul Blumenthal, Big Tech Companies Are So Powerful That A Nation Sent An Ambassador To Them, Huffington Post, June 23, 2018; Farhad Manjoo, How 5 Tech Giants Have Become More Like Governments Than Companies, NPR.org (host: Terry Gross), October 26, 2017.

[4] Sally Helgesen, Best Business Books 2019: Talent & Leadership, Strategy + Business, November 5, 2019; Tim Robinson, Blowing whistle on dirty money ‘wrecked my life’, BBC News, October 28, 2019; Kristin Lord, Six Ways to Repair Declining Social Trust, Stanford Social Innovation Review, January 31, 2019; Anat Admati, How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2019; Scott Barlow, Don’t trust government? You’re threatening the economy, Globe and Mail, July 19, 2016; Matthew Harrington, Survey: People’s Trust Has Declined in Business, Media, Government, and NGOs, Harvard Business Review, January 16, 2017; Uri Friedman, Trust is Collapsing in America, The Atlantic, January 21, 2018; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman.com, 2019; 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com. Also see, Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta, The Trust Crisis, Harvard Business Review, July 23, 2019.

[5] Christine Lagarde, There’s a reason for the lack of trust in government and business: corruption, The Guardian, May 4, 2018.

[6] Strengthening Whistleblower Protection: An International Imperative, Transparency International, June 7, 2013.

[7] Stephen Stubben and Kyle Welch, Research: Whistleblowers Are a Sign of Healthy Companies, Harvard Business Review, November 14, 2018; Tom Mueller, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud, Penguin Random House, 2019; Robert Towey, Whistleblowers ultimately help their companies perform better, a new study shows, CNBC, November 24, 2018; World Whistleblower Day 2019 – Is This a Landmark Year for Whistleblower Protection?, Transparency International, June 20, 2019; Allison Stanger, Whistle-Blowers Are the Last Defense Against Global Corruption, The Atlantic, October 22, 2019; David Schultz and Khackik Harutyunyan, Combatting corruption: The development of whistleblowing laws in the United States, Europe, and Armenia, International Comparative Jurisprudence, Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2015; Kevin Kelleher, How Whistleblowers Have Taken Down the Titans of American Business, Fortune, September 27, 2019.

[8] The role of whistleblowing in creating and maintaining a healthy corporate culture, Norton Rose Fulbright, nortonrosefulbright.com (Australia), July 2018.

[9] Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010; Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019; Siavash Vatanchi, Whistleblowing in Canada: A Call For Enhanced Private Sector Protection, 2019 CanLIIDocs 7, 2019; OECD, The Detection of Foreign Bribery: The Role of Whistleblowers and Whistleblower Protection, OECD Publishing, 2017.

[10] OECD, Whistleblower Protection, OECD.org.

[11] Frequently Asked Questions: Whistleblower protection, European Commission (ec.europa.eu), April 22, 2018.

[12] OECD, Whistleblower Protection, OECD.org; OECD, The Detection of Foreign Bribery: The Role of Whistleblowers and Whistleblower Protection, OECD Publishing, 2017; Tom Mueller, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud, Penguin Random House, 2019.

[13] Eric Sigurdson, Civility, Advocacy, and the Rule of Law: From Wall Street to Main Street, From the Boardroom to the Courtroom – lawyer civility is crucial in an uncivil world, Sigurdson Post, June 30, 2018; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman.com, 2019; Dennis Jaffe, The Essential Importance of Trust: How To Build It Or Restore It, Forbes, December 5, 2018. See reference to “social fabric” in Nicholas Kristof, Donald Trump Is Making America Meaner, New York Times, August 13, 2016.

[14] Kristin Lord, Six Ways to Repair Declining Social Trust, Stanford Social Innovation Review, January 31, 2019; Anat Admati, How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2019; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman.com, 2019; 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com. Also see, Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta, The Trust Crisis, Harvard Business Review, July 23, 2019; and Jane Johnston, Whose interests? Why defining the ‘public interest’ is such a challenge, The Conversation, January 22, 2019.

[15] Christine Lagarde, There’s a reason for the lack of trust in government and business: corruption, The Guardian, May 4, 2018. Also see, Jack Goldsmith, Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency? He disdains the rule of law. He’s trampling norms of presidential behavior. And he’s bringing vital institutions down with him, The Atlantic, October 2017 (“Citizens’ trust in American institutions has been in decline for a while. … The breakdown in institutions mirrors the breakdown in social cohesion …”); Georges Enderle, How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 150, Issue 3, July 2018; OECD, Perspectives on global development 2012: Social cohesion in a shifting world, OECD Publishing, 2011 (“A society is ‘cohesive’ if it works towards the well-being of all its members, fights exclusion and marginalization, creates a sense of belonging, promotes trust, and offers its members the opportunity of upward social mobility”).

[16] Edelman, Polarization spikes as Canadians seek institutions in which they can trust, Newswire.ca, February 14, 2019. Also see, 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman.com, 2019.

[17] Jim Smith and David Cruickshank, Corruption and the erosion of trust, World Economic Forum (weforum.org), January 4, 2017.

[18]   For example: Thomas Gryta, Joann Lublin, and David Benoit, How Jeffrey Immelt’s ‘Success Theater’ Masked the Rot at GE, Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2018; Peter Henning, Accounting Investigation Adds to Challenges Facing G.E., New York Times, February 2, 2018; Matt Egan, GE is under SEC investigation, CNN, January 24, 2018; Ryan Cooper, A brief history of crime, corruption, and malfeasance at American banks, The Week, October 9, 2017; Barclay Ballard, Top 5 biggest financial scandals of all times, World Finance, April 12, 2018; Courtney Goldsmith, Top 5 CEO scandals, European CEO, March 20, 2019; Katharina Bart, The Fall of Switzerland’s Uber-Banker, Finews.asia, March 2, 2018; Yeo Jiawei’s Ex-BSI Boss Describes 1MDB Kickbacks, Lavish Lifestyle, Cover-Up, Finews.asia, November 2, 2016; Sean McLain and Chieko Tsuneoka, Kobe Steel Admits 500 Companies Misled in Scandal, Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2017; Masumi Suga and Ichiro Suzuki, Kobe Steel Chief Quits as Report Finds New Misconduct Cases, Bloomberg, March 6, 2018 (“blamed on an overemphasis on profitability, poor governance”); Nicolas Van Praet, Former SNC-Lavalin executive Bebawai guilty on all charges in international corruption case, Globe and Mail, December 15, 2019; SNC-Lavalin Pleads Guilty In Libya Bribery Trial, Huffington Post, December 18, 2019; Matt Egan, Bank of America ‘systematically’ misled clients about stock trades, CNN, March 23, 2018;  U.S. Bancorp agrees to pay $613m to resolve issues related to BSA, Anti-Money Laundering compliance, Northern Kentucky Tribune, March 4, 2018; Liz Moyer, US Bank to pay more than $600 million over federal charges it had lax anti-money laundering controls, CNBC.com, February 15, 2018; Abhirup Roy and Devidutta Tripathy, India’s PNB Bank fraud likely to swell beyond $2 billion mark, CNBC.com, March 6, 2018; Jesse Drucker, Kate Kelly, and Ben Protess, Kushner’s Family Business Received Loans after White House Meetings: Apollo, the private equity firm, and Citigroup made large loans last year to the family real estate business of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior advisor, New York Times, February 28, 2018; Jill Abramson, Nepotism and corruption: the handmaidens of Trump’s presidency, The Guardian, March 6, 2018; Bradley Hope, Tom Wright, and Rebecca Ballhaus, Trump Ally Was in Talks to Earn Millions in Effort to End 1MDB Probe in U.S., Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2018; Arjun Kharpal, Trump ally reportedly in talks to earn $75 million is he could get the US probe into 1MDB dropped, CNBC, March 3, 2018; Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Citigroup’s Loan to Kushner: The Devil is in the Details of Citi’s Sordid History, Wall Street On Parade.com, March 1, 2018; Ralph Jennings, Bad For Business? China’s Corruption Isn’t Getting Any Better Despite Government Crackdowns, Forbes, March 15, 2018; Ferial Haffajee, Zuma’s Indictment on Corruption Sets An African Precedent: Zuma joins former Brazilian, Guatamalan and South Korean leaders in the dock for corruption this year, Huffington Post, March 16, 2018; David Frum, Can a New President Really Solve South Africa’s Corruption Problem?, The Atlantic, March 2, 2018; Canadian Press, Sino-Forest Corp. co-founder and former CEO found guilty of fraud, Toronto Star, March 15, 2018; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, Revealed: The Secrets of One of the World’s Dirtiest Banks and its Powerful Western Protectors, BuzzFeed News, December 13, 2017; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, Exposed: Kremlin-Linked Slush Funds Funnelling Money to Syria’s Chemical Weapons Financiers, BuzzFeed News, December 14, 2017; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, How Deutsche Bank Enabled A Dirty Offshore Bank to Move Dark Money, BuzzFeed News, December 15, 2017; Deborah Rhode, Cheating: Ethics and Law in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, October 2017; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate and Government Scandals: A Crisis in ‘Trust’ – Integrity and Leadership in the age of disruption, upheaval and globalization, Sigurdson Post, May 31, 2017; Eric Sigurdson, General Counsel and In-House Legal as Corporate Conscience: an evolutionary crossroads in the age of disruption, Sigurdson Post, June 29, 2017. 

[19] Jacob Shamsian and Kelly McLaughlan, Here’s the full list of people charged in the college admissions cheating scandal, and who has pleaded guilty so far, Insider, December 9, 2019.

[20] Andrew Hill, Leadership lessons from Australia’s cheating cricketers, Financial Times, March 26, 2018; Clayton Rose and Noah Fisher, Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted, Harvard Business Review, July 10, 2013; Michael Blanding, Lessons from the Lance Armstrong Cheating Scandal, HBS Working Knowledge, December 18, 2013.

[21] Deborah Rhode, When is lying or cheating justifiable?, Big Think.com, December 1, 2017; Deborah Rhode, Why do people lie? The reason athletes cheat, Donald Trump avoids taxes and VW fiddled its vehicle emissions, Mirror.co.uk, January 16, 2018; Deborah Rhode, Cheating: Ethics and Law in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, October 2017.

[22] For example, see: Thomas Gryta, Joann Lublin, and David Benoit, How Jeffrey Immelt’s ‘Success Theater’ Masked the Rot at GE, Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2018; Peter Henning, Accounting Investigation Adds to Challenges Facing G.E., New York Times, February 2, 2018; Matt Egan, GE is under SEC investigation, CNN, January 24, 2018; Ryan Cooper, A brief history of crime, corruption, and malfeasance at American banks, The Week, October 9, 2017; Kimberly Amadeo, The Causes of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, The Balance, November 20, 2019; Ben Chu, Financial crisis 2008: How Lehman Brothers helped cause ‘the worst financial crisis in history’, Independent, September 12, 2018; William Cohan, Jamie Dimon’s $13 Billion Secret – Revealed, Vanity Fair, September 6, 2017; Andy Greenbert, How Reporters Pulled Off the Panama Papers, the Biggest Leak in Whistleblower History, Wired, April 4, 2016; Douglas Dalby and Amy Wilson-Chapman, Panama Papers Helps Recover More Than $1.2 Billion Around the World, ICIJ.org, April 3, 2019; Will Fitzgibbon, Panama Papers FAQ: All You Need To Know About the 2016 Investigation, ICIJ.org, August 21, 2019; Julia Carrie Wong, The Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the world – but it didn’t change Facebook, Guardian, March 18, 2019; Nicholas Confessore, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far, New York Times, April 4, 2018; Emily Ackew, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie says data still not safe from tech giants like Facebook, ABC News (abc.net.au), August 9, 2019; Tasha Robinson, The Inventor examines the $9 billion Theranos scandal, and blames Silicon Valley, The Verge, March 19, 2019; Danny Fortson, How the Theranos blood scandal left a stain on Silicon Valley, The Times (thetimes.co.uk, March 24, 2019; Australia banking inquiry: ‘Scathing’ report calls for industry overhaul, BBC News, February 4, 2019; Padraig Collins, Australian banking in a right royal mess, The Irish Times, February 5, 2019; Ed Johnson, Why Heads Are Rolling at Another Big Australian Bank, Bloomberg, November 27, 2019; Nicolas Van Praet, Former SNC-Lavalin executive Bebawai guilty on all charges in international corruption case, Globe and Mail, December 15, 2019; David Schaper, 737 Max Scandal Cuts Boeing’s Once Rock-Solid Image, NPR.org, November 26, 2019; Greg Petro, Too Big to Fail? Accountability Threatening Future of Volkswagen, Boeing, and Sackler Family Brands, Forbes, August 16, 2019; Eric Lawrence, GM settles deadly ignition switch cases for $120 million, USA Today, October 20, 2017; David Frum, Can a New President Really Solve South Africa’s Corruption Problem?, The Atlantic, March 2, 2018; Katharina Bart, The Fall of Switzerland’s Uber-Banker, Finews.asia, March 2, 2018; Yeo Jiawei’s Ex-BSI Boss Describes 1MDB Kickbacks, Lavish Lifestyle, Cover-Up, Finews.asia, November 2, 2016; Sean McLain and Chieko Tsuneoka, Kobe Steel Admits 500 Companies Misled in Scandal, Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2017; Masumi Suga and Ichiro Suzuki, Kobe Steel Chief Quits as Report Finds New Misconduct Cases, Bloomberg, March 6, 2018 (“blamed on an overemphasis on profitability, poor governance”); Matt Egan, Bank of America ‘systematically’ misled clients about stock trades, CNN, March 23, 2018; U.S. Bancorp agrees to pay $613m to resolve issues related to BSA, Anti-Money Laundering compliance, Northern Kentucky Tribune, March 4, 2018; Liz Moyer, US Bank to pay more than $600 million over federal charges it had lax anti-money laundering controls, CNBC.com, February 15, 2018; Abhirup Roy and Devidutta Tripathy, India’s PNB Bank fraud likely to swell beyond $2 billion mark, CNBC.com, March 6, 2018; Jesse Drucker, Kate Kelly, and Ben Protess, Kushner’s Family Business Received Loans after White House Meetings: Apollo, the private equity firm, and Citigroup made large loans last year to the family real estate business of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior advisor, New York Times, February 28, 2018; Jill Abramson, Nepotism and corruption: the handmaidens of Trump’s presidency, The Guardian, March 6, 2018; Bradley Hope, Tom Wright, and Rebecca Ballhaus, Trump Ally Was in Talks to Earn Millions in Effort to End 1MDB Probe in U.S., Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2018; Arjun Kharpal, Trump ally reportedly in talks to earn $75 million is he could get the US probe into 1MDB dropped, CNBC, March 3, 2018; Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Citigroup’s Loan to Kushner: The Devil is in the Details of Citi’s Sordid History, Wall Street On Parade.com, March 1, 2018; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, Revealed: The Secrets of One of the World’s Dirtiest Banks and its Powerful Western Protectors, BuzzFeed News, December 13, 2017; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, Exposed: Kremlin-Linked Slush Funds Funnelling Money to Syria’s Chemical Weapons Financiers, BuzzFeed News, December 14, 2017; Tom Warren and Alex Campbell, How Deutsche Bank Enabled A Dirty Offshore Bank to Move Dark Money, BuzzFeed News, December 15, 2017; Deborah Rhode, Cheating: Ethics and Law in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, October 2017; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate and Government Scandals: A Crisis in ‘Trust’ – Integrity and Leadership in the age of disruption, upheaval and globalization, Sigurdson Post, May 31, 2017; Eric Sigurdson, General Counsel and In-House Legal as Corporate Conscience: an evolutionary crossroads in the age of disruption, Sigurdson Post, June 29, 2017; Joe Ciolli, A former Equifax executive has been charged with insider trading for selling shares before the company’s massive data breach was announced, Business Insider, March 14, 2018.

[23] See generally: Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2019; 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, Global Annual Study, Edelman.com; Deloitte Development, Tone at the top: The first ingredient in a world-class ethics and compliance program, Deloitte, 2015 (p. 2); Corruption scandal ‘may have cost Brazil eight times more than the £1.4 billion stolen’, Ekklesia.co.uk, March 24, 2018; Jonathan Shapiro and James Eyers, New corporate cop Shipton to close ‘trust gap’, Financial Review, March 19, 2018.

[24] Christine Lagarde, The Role of Business in Supporting a more Inclusive Global Economy, Conference on Inclusive Capitalism, New York, International Monetary Fund, October 10, 2016; Klaus Schwab, Five Leadership priorities for 2017, World Economic Forum, January 2, 2017; Richard Edelman, A crisis of trust: A warning to both business and government, Economist, The World In.com, 2016; Jim Norman, Americans’ Confidence in Institutions Stays Low, Gallup.com, June 13, 2016; Clare Malone, Americans Don’t Trust Their Institutions Anymore, FiveThirtyEight, November 16, 2016; Jake Johnson, As Millions of Workers Face Pension Cuts Thanks to Wall Street Greed, Executive Benefits Remain Lavish, Common Dreams.org, April 29, 2016; Matt Taibbi, Looting the Pension Funds, Rolling Stone, September 26, 2013; M.B., Busted Trust: Faith in world leaders, Economist, January 23, 2012; James Crisp, Juncker admits Europeans have lost faith in the EU, EurActiv.com, April 19, 2016; Nathaniel Persily and Jon Cohen, Americans are losing faith in democracy – and in each other, Washington Post, October 14, 2016; Richard Edelman, A crisis of trust: A warning to both business and government, Economist, The World In.com, 2016.

[25] 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, Global Annual Study, Edelman.com; Ty Kiisel, Without It, No Real Success is Possible, Forbes, February 5, 2013.

[26] Holly Green, The Decline of Trust (and What We can Do About It), Forbes, February 12, 2013; Richard Edelman, An Implosion of Trust, Edelman.com, January 15, 2017. Also see, Georges Enderle, How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 150, Issue 3, July 2018; How Rand is Responding to Truth Decay: Q&A with Michael Rich and Jennifer Kavanagh, Rand.org, May 5, 2017.

[27] G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan: Protection of Whistleblowers: Study of Whistleblower Protection Frameworks, Compendium of Best Practices and Guiding Principles for Legislation, OECD, 2011.

[28] David Dayen, Some top banking executives still see the law as an obstacle rather than a boundary, Business Insider, April 11, 2017. Also see: Ivy Walker, Ethikos Classic: Following the Boss’s Orders Might Land You in Jail, Compliance and Ethics.org, May 23, 2017 (reprinted from Classic Ethikos, The Journal of Practical Business Ethics, July/August 2016). Also see, Geoff Colvin, The Wells Fargo Scandal is now Reaching VW Proportions, Fortune, January 26, 2017; Richard Griffith, Wells Fargo – Lessons Learned, Impact on Integrity, May 2017; Matt Egan, Wells Fargo Scandal: Where was the board?, CNN, April 24, 2017; Jeff Spross, The agonizingly familiar problem with Wells Fargo’s board of directors, The Week, September 29, 2016; Gretchen Morgenson, By Taking the Money, Wells Fargo’s Board Seems to Recall Its Role, New York Times, September 27, 2016; Doron Levin, Volkswagen’s new CEO must tackle the ‘culture of arrogance’, Fortune, September 27, 2015; Jason Kirby, Volkswagen was undone by Wall Street-style arrogance, Canadian Business, September 24, 2015.

[29] Also see, Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016.

[30] See generally: Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2019; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[31] Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, Culture Takes Over When the CEO Leaves the Room, Harvard Business Review, May 10, 2012.

[32] Andrea Bonime-Blanc, Getting to a Culture of Integrity: The Role of the CEO, the Board and Risk Strategy, ECI Connects, December 16, 2013; Ruth Sullivan, Twelve of the biggest mistakes boards make about culture, Board Agenda, October 31, 2017; Meaghan Kilroy, BlackRock offers more details in its corporate governance efforts, Pensions & Investments (pionline.com), March 16, 2018 (“board oversight of corporate culture”); Andrea Bonime-Blanc, Three Tools for Overseeing Corporate Culture, National Association of Corporate Directors, March 26, 2018; Per-Ola Karlsson, DeAnne Aguirre, and Kristin Rivera, Are CEOs Less Ethical Than in the Past?, Strategy and Business, May 15, 2017; Canadian Press, More North American CEOs leaving posts due to ‘ethical lapses’, study says, Toronto Star, May 15, 2017.

[33] See: Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2019.

[34] Corporate Culture: The second ingredient in a world-class ethics and compliance program, Deloitte, 2015; Building world-class ethics and compliance programs: Making a good program great – Five ingredients for your program, Deloitte, 2015; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016.

[35] Jonathan Shapiro and James Eyers, New corporate cop Shipton to close ‘trust gap’, Financial Review, March 19, 2018.

[36] Anat Admati, How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2019;

[37] David Schultz and Khackik Harutyunyan, Combatting corruption: The development of whistleblowing laws in the United States, Europe, and Armenia, International Comparative Jurisprudence, Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2015.

[38] David Schultz and Khackik Harutyunyan, Combatting corruption: The development of whistleblowing laws in the United States, Europe, and Armenia, International Comparative Jurisprudence, Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2015.

[39] Margaret Garnett and Preet Bharara, Remaining Silent About Corruption Should Not Be an Option, New York Times, October 17, 2019.

[40] Herve Stolowy, Yves Gendron, Jodie Moll, and Luc Paugam, Building the Legitimacy of Whistleblowers: A Multi-Case Discourse Analysis, Contemporary Accounting Research, Volume 36, Issue 1, Spring 2019; Stephen Letts, The whistleblower, politician and journo who hauled the banks before a royal commission, ABC News (abc.net.au), February 1, 2019; Daniel Otis, Whistleblower ‘sick’ over JPMorgan’s settlement after financial crisis, Toronto Star, December 17, 2014.

[41] Bruce Schneier, What We Don’t Know About Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know, The Atlantic, June 6, 2013. Also see, Caitlin Diskin, ‘I had a moral duty’: whistleblowers on why they spoke up, The Guardian, October 9, 2018; George Martin, At least four whistleblowers make safety complaints against Boeing over troubled 737 Max jet, Daily Mail, April 29,2019; Tim Higgins and Nick Summers, GM Recalls: How General Motors Silenced a Whistle-Blower, Bloomberg, June 19, 2014.

[42] Allison Stanger, Whistle-blowers Are the Last Defense Against Global Corruption, The Atlantic, October 22, 2019.

[43] Allison Stanger, Whistle-blowers Are the Last Defense Against Global Corruption, The Atlantic, October 22, 2019.

[44] Margaret Garnett and Preet Bharara, Remaining Silent About Corruption Should Not Be an Option, New York Times, October 17, 2019.

[45] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2019.

[46] Constance Bagley, Bruno Cova, and Lee Augsburger, How Boards Can Reduce Corporate Misbehaviour, Harvard Business Review, December 21, 2017.

[47] Nelson Pratt, The Rising Tide of Global Whistleblower Regulations, Navex Global: Ethics & Compliance Matters, October 30, 2019.

[48] Eric Sigurdson, Civility, Advocacy, and the Rule of Law: From Wall Street to Main Street, From the Boardroom to the Courtroom – lawyer civility is crucial in an uncivil world, Sigurdson Post, June 30, 2018.

[49] Anat Admati, How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2019; Public Trust in Government: 1958-2019, Pew Research Center, April 11, 2019; Nearly Two-Thirds of Young Americans Fearful About the Future of Democracy in America, Harvard youth poll finds, Harvard Kennedy School: Institute of Politics, 2018; Frank Newport, Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism, Gallup, August 13, 2018; Elizabeth Renzetti, This sham of a British election have us all bloody worried (Opinion), Globe and Mail, November 22, 2019; Audit of Political Engagement 16: The 2019 Report – The annual health check on public attitudes towards politics in Great Britain, Hansard Society, 2019; John Authers, Finance, the media and a catastrophic breakdown in trust, Financial Times, October 4, 2018; Jonathan Shapiro and James Eyers, New corporate cop Shipton to close ‘trust gap’, Financial Review, March 19, 2018; Government at a Glance 2013, Chapter 1: Trust in government, policy effectiveness and the governance agenda, OECD Publishing, 2013; Tom W.G. van der Meer, Political Trust and the ‘Crisis of Democracy’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, January 2017; Uri Friedman, Trust is Collapsing in America: When truth itself feels uncertain, how can a democracy be sustained?, The Atlantic, January 21, 2019; 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; Georges Enderle, How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 150, Issue 3, July 2018

[50] Georges Enderle, How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 150, Issue 3, July 2018; Brian Duignan, John Rawls: American Philosopher, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Updated November 20, 2019.

[51] Andy Greenbert, How Reporters Pulled Off the Panama Papers, the Biggest Leak in Whistleblower History, Wired, April 4, 2016. Also see, Douglas Dalby and Amy Wilson-Chapman, Panama Papers Helps Recover More Than $1.2 Billion Around the World, ICIJ.org, April 3, 2019; Will Fitzgibbon, Panama Papers FAQ: All You Need To Know About the 2016 Investigation, ICIJ.org, August 21, 2019.

[52] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2018; Patrick Leach, Normalization of Deviance, Decision Strategies.com, February 1, 2016; Chris Gervais, Resolving the Normalization of Deviance by Building a Culture of Communication, Cloud Tweaks.com, November 21, 2016.

[53] Anat Admati, How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2019; Lee Drutman, The Business of America is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate, Oxford University Press, 2015.

[54] Restoring Faith in Business: How Purpose-Driven Companies Can Serve the Common Good, Medium, June 7, 2018. Also see, Justin King, What do businesses owe to society? Is it possible to expect companies to behave ethically and still satisfy all stakeholders?, RSA Journal, Issue 1, 2019.

[55] See generally: Business – Silvio Dulinsky, Make no mistake: the purpose of business is to serve society, World Economic Forum, November 7, 2019; Big Business, shareholders and society: What companies are for, The Economist, August 22, 2019; Robert Phillips, Accountability: A Business Answer to a World in Crisis, Jericho (jerichochambers.com), November 19, 2019; Todd Northman and Savannah Fox, The Role of Corporate Counsel Under the Business Roundtable’s New Purpose, Corporate Counsel, October 31, 2019 (“in addition to … profit, corporations should generate good jobs; help maintain a sustainable and robust economy; and encourage innovation, a healthy environment and economic opportunity for all. … society has become another bottom line for companies.”); Bill Ford, Serving Society is Good For Business, Huffington Post, March 9, 2017; Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Beyond the bottom line: should business put purpose before profit?, Financial Times, January 4, 2019; David Gelles and David Yaffe-Bellany, Shareholder Value Is No Longer Everything, Top CEOs Say, New York Times, August 19, 2019; Simon Goodley and Rupert Neate, Leading US bosses drop shareholder-first principle, Guardian, August 19, 2019; Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim, 181 Top CEOs Have Realized Companies Need a Purpose Beyond Profit, Harvard Business Review, August 20, 2019; Peter Drucker, Big Business and the National Purpose, Harvard Business Review, March 1962; The 2019 Global Business Ethics Survey, ECI (ethics & compliance initiative), 2019. Government – Anne-Marie Slaughter, 3 responsibilities every government has towards its citizens, World Economic Forum, February 13, 2017; Colm Kelly and Blair Sheppard, Common Purpose: Realigning Business, Economies, and Society, Strategy + Business, Issue 88, Autumn 2017; Howard Buffett and William Eimicke, How Companies, Governments, and Nonprofits Can Create Social Change Together, Harvard Business Review, May 31, 2018; The Public, the Political System and American Democracy: Most say ‘design and structure’ of government need big changes, Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018; David Moss, Fixing What’s Wrong with U.S. Politics, Harvard Business Review, March 2012; David Moscrop, The secret no government wants you to know: No leaders has a ‘mandate’, Maclean’s, July 27, 2018 (“Governments should be accountable and responsive to all the people they serve. … there is government by the people. That, however, requires us to own self-government by resisting politicians who would relieve us of our right to resist them.”); Edward Rubin, The Myth of Accountability and the Anti-Administrative Impulse, 103 Michigan Law Review, 2073, 2005 (“Government … is a socially created mechanism designed to serve the people’s needs.”); Staffan Lindberg, Mapping accountability: core concepts and subtypes, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol. 79, Issue 2, 2013; Valeriya Mechkova, Anna Luhrmann, and Staffan Lindberg, The Accountability Sequence: from De-Jure to De-Facto Constraints on Governments, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 54, Issue 1, March 2019; Michael Goodhart, Democratic Accountability in Global Politics: Norms, not Agents, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 73, No. 1, 2011; Jocelyne Bourgon, Responsive, responsible and respected government: towards a New Public Administration theory, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol. 73, Issue 1, 2007.

[56] Richard Bowen, Misconduct Leads to More Misconduct, LinkedIn, November 22, 2019.

[57] Richard Bowen, The Fall of an American Icon, LinkedIn, November 11, 2019.

[58] See for example: Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2018.

[59] Scandals and organizational crisis that trace back to the early 2000s: Enron (2001), HIH Insurance (2001), WorldCom (2002), Freddie Mac mortgage scandal (2003), AIG accounting scandal (2005), Lehman Brothers investment bank and subprime mortgage crisis (2008), Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) fixing scandal and Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, etc. (2012), General Motors’ concealment of defective ignition switches killing 13 people (2014), Petrobras multibillion dollar Brazilian money-laundering and bribery scandal (2014), Volkswagen’s DieselGate (2015), Wells Fargo banking scandal (2016), United Airlines (2017), Japan’s Kobe Steel falsified quality control data scandal (2017), Theransos “Bad Blood” fraud (2018), Facebook’s “Cambridge Analytica scandal” (2018), Boeing’s 737 Max Crisis (2018), as well as the 2008 credit markets’ disintegration that cascaded into the global financial meltdown that significantly threatened global capitalism. See, Chris Matthew and Matthew Heimer, The 5 Biggest Corporate Scandals of 2016, Fortune, December 28, 2016; Geoffrey James, Top 10 Brand Scandals of 2015, Inc., September 26, 2015; Syed Balkhi, 25 Biggest Corporate Scandals Ever, List25.com, July 15, 2014; Top 10 CEO Scandals, Time, August 10, 2010. Also see, Ryan Cooper, A brief history of crime, corruption, and malfeasance at American banks, The Week, October 9, 2017; Mary Williams Walsh and Emily Flitter, McKinsey Faces Criminal Inquiry Over Bankruptcy Case Conduct, New York Times, November 9, 2019; Natalie Kitroeff, David Gelles and Jack Nicas, The Roots of Boeing’s 737 Max Crisis: A Regulator Relaxes Its Oversight, New York Times, July 27, 2019; Sachin Waikar, What Can We Learn From the Downfall of Theranos?, Stanford Business (gsb.stanford.edu), December 17, 2018.

[60] Corporate Research Project, corp-research.org.

[61] Rupert Neate, Generation Wealth: how the modern world fell in love with money, The Guardian, July 8, 2018.

[62] One need only consider the recent self-inflicted crises at Wells Fargo (a banking scandal where two million accounts were illegally opened without customers’ knowledge), FIFA (soccer’s global governing body engulfed in widespread corruption involving bribery, fraud and money laundering), Volkswagen (where emissions data was falsified in a global scandal fittingly referred to as DieselGate), Kobe Steel (scandal involving falsified quality control data on strength and durability of aluminum, copper and steel products sold to aviation, automobile, railway and nuclear power industries), U.S. Peanut Corp (knowingly sold tainted food causing illness and death), United Airlines (where a 69 year old doctor was assaulted, physically injured, and dragged from an overbooked airplane to make room for a company staffer), BigLaw Dewey & LeBoeuf (involving accounting fraud by two ex- executive leaders), defunct law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler (a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme by the ex-managing partner involving fabricated ‘structured settlements’), or even Robert Murdoch’s News Corp phone-hacking scandal that engulfed British journalism for a decade (editors illegally hacked cell phones to publish private information). Also see, Ryan Cooper, A brief history of crime, corruption, and malfeasance at American banks, The Week, October 9, 2017.

[63] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2018. Also see, Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes, Why Compliance Programs Fail – and How to Fix Them, Harvard Business Review, March-April 2018; 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, Global Annual Study, Edelman.com; Deloitte Development, Tone at the top: The first ingredient in a world-class ethics and compliance program, Deloitte, 2015 (p. 2); Corruption scandal ‘may have cost Brazil eight times more than the £1.4 billion stolen’, Ekklesia.co.uk, March 24, 2018; Terry Carter, Will those who led the financial system into crisis ever face charges?, ABA Journal, February 1, 2016; Eric Sigurdson, Corporate and Government Scandals: A Crisis in ‘Trust’ – Integrity and Leadership in the age of disruption, upheaval and globalization, Sigurdson Post, May 31, 2017; Carlo Alberto Brioschi, Corrupt finance: The great market collapses, Medium (The Brookings Institution), May 4, 2017; Andrew Simon, The need for ethical leadership, LinkedIn, March 24, 2018; Aaron Gilbreath, Volkswagen and ‘the Normalization of Deviance’, Longreads.com, February 15, 2016; Jerry Useem, What Was Volkswagen Thinking: On the origins of corporate evil – and idiocy, The Atlantic, January-February 2016 (“The sociologist Diane Vaughan coined the phrase the normalization of deviance to describe a cultural drift in which circumstances classified as “not okay” are slowly reclassified as “okay.”); Deborah Rhode, Cheating: Ethics and Law in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, October 2017; Adam Henshall, Why the Normalization of Deviance is Hurting Your Company, Process.st, January 20, 2017; Bertrand Villeret (Editor in Chief), Interview: Diane Vaughan, Consulting News Line.com, Mary 2008 – normalization of deviance is a concept developed by American sociologist Professor Diane Vaughan (Columbia University):

“Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviant behavior that they don’t consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety.”

[64] Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks (Final Report: Prepared for Australian Bankers’ Association), Promontory Australasia (Sydney) Pty Ltd, August 2016.

[65] Caitlin Diskin, ‘I had a moral duty’: whistleblowers on why they spoke up, The Guardian, October 9, 2018.

[66] Stephen Stubben and Kyle Welch, Research: Whistleblowers Are a Sign of Healthy Companies, Harvard Business Review, November 14, 2018; Mary Inman and Ari Yampolsky, Trump’s whistleblower tactics are straight out of America’s corrupt corporate playbook, Quartz, November 8, 2019; Joyce White Vance, Why All of Trump’s Defenses Against Impeachment Are Doomed to Fail, Time, November 11, 2019; Louise Matsakis, What Past Whistle-Blowers Think of the Trump-Ukraine Complaint – Two former intelligence community whistle-blowers say the life of whoever wrote the Trump-Ukraine complaint has been permanently altered, Wired, September 28, 2019; Trump, impeachment and American democracy: The president has forced an invidious choice on Congress, The Economist, December 12, 2019 (“Mr. Trump’s behaviour forced on Congress an invidious choice. He deserves to be removed for attempting to tip the 2020 election. … The main facts are not in dispute. … Mr. Trump is getting off lightly. When the Senate absolves him next year he will claim to have been vindicated. On the evidence, he is guilty of abusing his office. Instead, he will stay—possibly for another term. There is little doubt that his sense of impunity will be further redoubled.”).

[67] Dov Seldman, Why Companies Shouldn’t ‘Do’ Compliance, Forbes, May 4, 2012.

[68] Stephen Stubben and Kyle Welch, Research: Whistleblowers Are a Sign of Healthy Companies, Harvard Business Review, November 14, 2018. Also see, Robert Towey, Whistleblowers ultimately help their companies perform better, a new study shows, CNBC, November 24, 2018.

[69] Stephen Stubben and Kyle Welch, Research: Whistleblowers Are a Sign of Healthy Companies, Harvard Business Review, November 14, 2018. Also see, Global Whistleblowing Survey 2014: Fair game or foul play?, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 2014.

[70] Global Whistleblowing Survey 2014: Fair game or foul play?, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 2014; Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010; Meera Jagannathan, What to be a whistleblower? Read this first, Market Watch, October 1, 2019; Peter van der Velden, Mauro Pecoraro, Mijke Houwerzijl, and Erik van der Meulen, Mental Health Problems Among Whistleblowers: A Comparative Study, Psychological Reports, Vol. 122, Issue 2, 2019; Tim Robinson, Blowing whistle on dirty money ‘wrecked my life’, BBC News, October 28, 2019; Madison Marriage, Betrayed by the Big Four: Whistleblowers speak out, Financial Times, November 20, 2019.

[71] Global Whistleblowing Survey 2014: Fair game or foul play?, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 2014.

[72] Global Whistleblowing Survey 2014: Fair game or foul play?, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 2014.

[73] Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010; Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019.

[74] Strengthening Whistleblower Protection: An International Imperative, Transparency International, June 7, 2013.

[75] Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010; Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019.

[76] Siavash Vatanchi, Whistleblowing in Canada: A Call For Enhanced Private Sector Protection, 2019 CanLIIDocs 7, 2019.

[77] Sarah Dobson, Whistleblowers fear job loss, disclosure, retaliation: survey, HR Reporter, November 1, 2019.

[78] Sarah Dobson, Whistleblowers fear job loss, disclosure, retaliation: survey, HR Reporter, November 1, 2019.

[79] Francesca Gino, Why It’s So Hard to Speak Up Against a Toxic Culture, Harvard Business Review, May 21, 2018.

[80] Nathan Lynch, Targeting Whistleblowers: How the Pursuit of Individuals Will Affect the New Regulatory Regime, Thomson Reuters, December 3, 2019.

[81] Meera Jagannathan, What to be a whistleblower? Read this first, Market Watch, October 1, 2019. Also see, Peter van der Velden, Mauro Pecoraro, Mijke Houwerzijl, and Erik van der Meulen, Mental Health Problems Among Whistleblowers: A Comparative Study, Psychological Reports, Vol. 122, Issue 2, 2019; Tim Robinson, Blowing whistle on dirty money ‘wrecked my life’, BBC News, October 28, 2019.

[82] Peter van der Velden, Mauro Pecoraro, Mijke Houwerzijl, and Erik van der Meulen, Mental Health Problems Among Whistleblowers: A Comparative Study, Psychological Reports, Vol. 122, Issue 2, 2019.

[83] Eric Sigurdson, Legal Professional Privilege, In-house Counsel, and a Global Market – Scope, Application, and Risk vary across jurisdictions: law, policy, and a practical framework, Sigurdson Post, August 31, 2017; Matt Gingell, Whistleblowing: Would you blow the whistle on your boss? What protections do you get?, Independent, April 10, 2017; Margaret Garnett and Preet Bharara, Remaining Silent About Corruption Should Not Be an Option, New York Times, October 17, 2019.

[84] Nelson Pratt, The Rising Tide of Global Whistleblower Regulations, Navex Global: Ethics & Compliance Matters, October 30, 2019. Also see, Better protection of whistle-blowers: new EU-wide rules to kick in in 2021, European Council (consilium.europa.eu), October 7, 2019; ISO 37002 Whistleblowing management systems – Guidelines, ISO/TC 309 Governance of Organizations (committee.iso.org), 2019; EU gives ‘high-level’ protection to whistleblowers, BBC News, April 16, 2019; Leah Shepherd, New Law Protects Whistleblowers in Australia, SHRM.org, October 31, 2019; Glen Cranny, New federal whistleblower laws related to companies, Gilshenan & Luton (gnl.com.au), November 4, 2019; Adam Simms, etal, Whistleblower protection legislation – what do organisations need to know?, BDO Australia, October 28, 2019;

[85] Roy Snell, LinkedIn, November 2019.

[86] Nelson Pratt, The Rising Tide of Global Whistleblower Regulations, Navex Global: Ethics & Compliance Matters, October 30, 2019.

[87] The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) launched its own whistleblower program in July 2016 to provide incentives for the reporting of serious securities-related misconduct in Ontario to the OSC. The program is the first of its kind for securities regulators in Canada. The OSC’s cutting-edge program is modelled after its sister program in the United States. The OSC program provides mechanisms for confidential or anonymous disclosure that are very strong compared to many other whistleblower systems in Canada. Moreover, the OSC incentivizes potential whistleblowers with financial rewards (up to $5 million dollars) if the information provided results in enforcement action. The Quebec securities regulator has also launched a whistleblower program to offer protection measures for whistleblowers, but the program will not provide any financial reward to whistleblowers for information. See, Siavash Vatanchi, Whistleblowing in Canada: A Call For Enhanced Private Sector Protection, 2019 CanLIIDocs 7, 2019; Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks (Final Report: Prepared for Australian Bankers’ Association), Promontory Australasia (Sydney) Pty Ltd, August 2016.

[88] Elise von Scheel, “A tissue paper shield’: Expert slams Canada’s lack of protections for whistleblowers, CBC, November 16, 2019. Also see, Sarah Dobson, Whistleblowers fear job loss, disclosure, retaliation: survey, HR Reporter, November 1, 2019; Mo Vayeghan, Whistle-blowers need protection. It’s time to act – opinion: Canada lacks strong whistleblower protection laws, Vancouver Sun, September 24, 2019; Cameron Hutchison, Alberta’s Whistleblower Legislation, Slaw, May 8, 2019; What is Whistleblowing? Guide to Whistleblowing in Canada, KCYatLaw.ca, June 3, 2019; Siavash Vatanchi, Whistleblowing in Canada: A Call For Enhanced Private Sector Protection, 2019 CanLIIDocs 7, 2019.

[89] Siavash Vatanchi, Whistleblowing in Canada: A Call For Enhanced Private Sector Protection, 2019 CanLIIDocs 7, 2019.

[90] Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010; Meera Jagannathan, What to be a whistleblower? Read this first, MarketWatch, October 1, 2019.

[91] Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019; Mary Inman and Ari Yampolsky, Trump’s whistleblower tactics are straight out of America’s corrupt corporate playbook, Quartz, November 8, 2019.

[92] Victoria Bekiempis, Trump’s attacks on whistleblower could do lasting damage to system, experts say, Guardian, November 8, 2019; Ed Pilkington, Donald Trump’s smears designed to silence would-be whistleblowers, experts warn, The Guardian, September 26, 2019.

[93] Ryan Browne, Edward Snowden says ‘the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable’, CNBC, November 4, 2019.

[94] Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019.

[95] Victoria Bekiempis, Trump’s attacks on whistleblower could do lasting damage to system, experts say, Guardian, November 8, 2019.

[96] See for example: Matt Gingell, Whistleblowing: Would you blow the whistle on your boss? What protections do you get?, Independent, April 10, 2017; Kalyeena Makortoff, Barclays hit with $15m fine over attempts to unmask whistleblower: Regulator accuses senior management of failing to follow whistleblowing policies, Guardian, December 18, 2018; Caroline Binham and Martin Arnold, Barclays chief Staley fined £640,000 over whistleblowing scandal, Financial Times, May 11, 2018; Mary Inman and Ari Yampolsky, Trump’s whistleblower tactics are straight out of America’s corrupt corporate playbook, Quartz, November 8, 2019.

[97] Dennis Wagner, Trump’s allies want to ID the whistleblower, who may learn the price of speaking out, USA Today, November 6, 2019.

[98] Patricia Patrick, Be Prepared Before You Blow the Whistle, Fraud Magazine, September-October 2010.

[99] Center for Regulatory Strategy, Managing Conduct Risk: Addressing Drivers, Restoring Trust, Deloitte, 2017.

[100] James Sudakow, If You Don’t Build your Culture, One Will Form on its Own (and you might not like what you get), Inc, February 23, 2017. Also see, Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership, and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016 – “The specific areas that ethics and compliance departments focus on will vary depending on the size of the organization, ownership structure, the type of sector and industry, nature scope and complexity of operations, risk profile, and the level of regulation.  However, for all organizations, what is clear is that yesterday’s compliance program will no longer work.”

[101] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016.

[102] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[103] Stephen Sedgwick, Retail Banking Remuneration Review Report (Australia), Australian Bankers’ Association, April 19, 2017.

[104] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Culture, Leadership, and Personal Liability – Ethics and Compliance Programs in the 21^st Century, Sigurdson Post, October 5, 2016.

[105] Center for Regulatory Strategy, Managing Conduct Risk: Addressing Drivers, Restoring Trust, Deloitte, 2017.

[106] James Sudakow, If You Don’t Build your Culture, One Will Form on its Own (and you might not like what you get), Inc, February 23, 2017.

[107] Chris Cancialosi, Two Ways to Ensure your Corporate Culture and Values Align, Forbes, July 20, 2015.

[108] Dr. John Stahl-Wert, Raise Vision High and Run with Great Purpose, johnstahlwert.com, December 9, 2015. Also see, Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert, The Serving Leader: Five Powerful Actions that will Transform your Team, your Business, and your Community, October 2004.

[109] See, Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[110] Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks (Final Report: Prepared for Australian Bankers’ Association), Promontory Australasia (Sydney) Pty Ltd, August 2016.

[111] Sally Helgesen, Best Business Books 2019: Talent & Leadership, Strateg + Business, November 5, 2019. Also see, Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2018.

[112] The 2018 Global Business Ethics Survey: Measuring the Impact of Ethics & Compliance Programs, ECI (ethics & compliance initiative), June 2018.

[113] Andrew Winston, Pepsi, United, and the Speed of Corporate Shame, Harvard Business Review, April 12, 2017.

[114] Review of Whistleblowing Protections by Australian Banks (Final Report: Prepared for Australian Bankers’ Association), Promontory Australasia (Sydney) Pty Ltd, August 2016.

[115] PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2018: Pulling fraud out of the shadows, PwC.com, 2018. Also see, Michael Vokov, No More Excuses: CCOs Have to Embrace Technology, VolkovLaw.com, September 19, 2017; Andrea Bonime-Blanc, Three Tools for Overseeing Corporate Culture, National Association of Corporate Directors, March 26, 2018.

[116] Richard Bowen, Transparency, Integrity and Ireland, LinkedIn, December 6, 2019. The 2018 Global Business Ethics Survey: Measuring the Impact of Ethics & Compliance Programs, ECI (ethics & compliance initiative), June 2018;

[117] The 2018 Global Business Ethics Survey: Measuring the Impact of Ethics & Compliance Programs, ECI (ethics & compliance initiative), June 2018.

[118] Kevin LaCroix, Book Review – ‘Crisis of Confidence: Whistleblowing in the Age of Fraud’, The D & O Diary, October 20, 2019. Also see, Tom Mueller, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud, Penguin Random House, 2019.

[119] Wayne Brody and Mark Rowe, Corporate Culture and Compliance in the 21^st Century, New York Law Journal: Compliance, October 27, 2014. Also see, Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[120] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[121] Center for Regulatory Strategy, Managing Conduct Risk: Addressing Drivers, Restoring Trust, Deloitte, 2017.

[122] The Global Risk Institute provides valuable support to boards of financial institutions in helping to address risk issue.  The GRI was founded in 2011 as a result of an idea conceived by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Jim Flaherty, former Canadian Minister of Finance. There was an initial group of sixteen financial institutions, with the Governments of Canada, Ontario, TD Group and Manulife being the core founders. Also see, Jeremy Rudin, Enabling More Effective Governance of Canadian Financial Institutions – Remarks by Superintendent Jeremy Rudin to the Global Risk Institute, Toronto, Ontario, June 14, 2016, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, osfi-bsif.gc.ca; OFSI Mandate, osfi-bsif.gc.ca.

[123] Deloitte, Corporate Culture: The second ingredient in a world-class ethics and compliance program, 2015. Also see, Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Leadership and Culture: United Airlines & the ‘Re-accommodated’ Doctor – guiding principles for Boards, C-suite executives, and General Counsel, Sigurdson Post, May 2, 2017.

[124] Dina Medland, Corporate ‘Culture’ Is Not About Art, Forbes, March 22, 2015 – UK Business Secretary Vince Cable said: “improving corporate culture – so employees feel valued, listened to, and confident about raising concerns – requires further action.”

[125] Report on Governance Structures for Values and Ethics, Government of Canada (Canada.ca).

[126] Nathan Lynch, Targeting Whistleblowers: How the Pursuit of Individuals Will Affect the New Regulatory Regime, Thomson Reuters, December 3, 2019.

[127] Dennis Jaffe, The Essential Importance of Trust: How To Build It Or Restore It, Forbes, December 5, 2018.

[128] Michael Olver, Whistleblower protection protocols are now a key element of FCPA compliance, The FCPA Blog, May 15, 2019.

[129] Robert Phillips, Accountability: A Business Answer to a World in Crisis, Jericho (jerichochambers.com), November 19, 2019.

[130] Center for Regulatory Strategy, Managing Conduct Risk: Addressing Drivers, Restoring Trust, Deloitte, 2017.

[131] Constance Bagley, Bruno Cova, and Lee Augsburger, How Boards Can Reduce Corporate Misbehavior, Harvard Business Review, December 21, 2017.

[132] Center for Regulatory Strategy, Managing Conduct Risk: Addressing Drivers, Restoring Trust, Deloitte, 2017.

[133] Deborah Rhode, Why do people lie? The reason athletes cheat, Donald Trump avoids taxes and VW fiddled its vehicle emissions, Mirror.co.uk, January 16, 2018; Christine Lagarde, There’s a reason for the lack of trust in government and business: corruption, The Guardian, May 4, 2018.

[134] Edelman, Polarization spikes as Canadians seek institutions in which they can trust, Newswire.ca, February 14, 2019. Also see, 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman.com; 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman.com, 2019.

[135] Antonio Argandona, Why is it hard to be ethical in business, IESE Business School, University of Navarra (iese.edu), September 7, 2015.

[136] Mike Myatt, 15 Ways to Identify Bad Leaders, Forbes, October 18, 2012. Also see, Eric Sigurdson, Leadership Qualities: from Wells Fargo to Donald Trump – character, integrity, and ethics are necessities, not luxuries, Sigurdson Post, October 17, 2016; Andrew Simon, The need for ethical leadership, LinkedIn, March 24, 2018.

[137] EY 14th Global Fraud Survey: Corporate misconduct — individual consequences (spotlight on executive integrity), EY.com, 2016.

[138] Peter Henning, Accounting Investigation Adds to Challenges Facing G.E., New York Times, February 2, 2018. Also see, Matt Egan, GE is under SEC investigation, CNN, January 24, 2018; Thomas Gryta, Joann Lublin, and David Benoit, How Jeffrey Immelt’s ‘Success Theater’ Masked the Rot at GE, Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2018; Sabah al-Binali, Scandals to learn from: Enron, GE, Crazy Eddie, The National, October 5, 2017.

[139] Policy Paper: Against Corruption: a collection of essays, Gov.uk, May 12, 2016.

[140] Eric Sigurdson, Corporate Misconduct and the Normalization of Deviance: leadership, corporate culture, and the pathway to organizational integrity, Sigurdson Post, March 31, 2019.

[141] Stephen Martin Kohn, The New Whistleblower’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Doing What’s Right and Protecting Yourself (3^rd edition), Lyons Press, 2017; David Cameron, Corruption: More Than a Cancer, Transparency International UK, December 13, 2017; Tom Scheck, Ethics Be Damned: More than half of Trump’s 20-person Cabinet has engaged in questionable our unethical conduct, Market Place, February 16, 2018; Christine Lagarde, Mending the Trust Divide, International Monetary Fund, September 18, 2016;

[142] Tom Devine and Tarek Maassrani, The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth, Berrett-Koehjer Publishers Inc., 2011.

[143] Jane Fogarty, Insight: How a Global Company Embraces Internal Whistleblowers, Bloomberg Law, December 13, 2019.

[144] Paul Healy and George Serafeim, How to Scandal-Proof Your Company, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2019.

[145] Whistleblower Protections: A Guide, International Bar Association – Legal Policy & Research Unit and Legal Practice Division, April 2018.

[146] Kenneth Taylor, The Ethics of Whistleblowing, Philosophy Talk.org, July 9, 2015; Whistleblowers, Hfajustice.com.

[147] Proven Effectiveness of Whistleblowers, National Whistleblowers Center, 2010; Public Comment on the Public Services Disclosure Protection Act, National Whistleblower Center, April 26, 2017; Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse, and Luigi Zingales, Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6126, May 2008; Stephen Martin Kohn, The New Whistleblower’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Doing What’s Right and Protecting Yourself (3^rd edition), Lyons Press, 2017.

[148] Leo Martin, How to cultivate a whistleblowing culture, Ethical Corporation, May 4, 2017.

[149] Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel, Ethical Breakdowns, Harvard Business Review, April 2011.

[150] Tom Devine and Tarek Maassrani, The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth, Berrett-Koehjer Publishers Inc., 2011.

[151] Whistleblower Protections: A Guide, International Bar Association – Legal Policy & Research Unit and Legal Practice Division, April 2018; Proven Effectiveness of Whistleblowers, National Whistleblowers Center, 2010; Public Comment on the Public Services Disclosure Protection Act, National Whistleblower Center, April 26, 2017; Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse, and Luigi Zingales, Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6126, May 2008; Stephen Martin Kohn, The New Whistleblower’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Doing What’s Right and Protecting Yourself (3^rd edition), Lyons Press, 2017; Patrice Cailleba and Sandra Charreire Petit, The whistleblower as the personification of a moral and managerial paradox, Management, Vol. 21, Issue 1, 2018; G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan: Protection of Whistleblowers: Study of Whistleblower Protection Frameworks, Compendium of Best Practices and Guiding Principles for Legislation, OECD, 2011.