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| May 29, 2008 |
Contact:
Andy Pino
(202) 687-8610
media@mba.georgetown.edu
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In a recent study published in the journal Organization Science, McDonough School Professor Marcia Miceli and her co-authors found that women who alert authorities to misconduct in their organizations perceive that they suffer greater retaliation than do men.
"The levels of retaliation as perceived by the women we surveyed were greater than those perceived by men," says Miceli, who together with Janet Near and Terry Dworkin also co-authored the recent book "Whistle-Blowing in Organizations" (Taylor and Francis, 2008).
The authors studied a single U.S. military unit in the Midwest with 9,900 employees, two-thirds of them civilians and one-third active duty military. Nearly 3,300 employees responded to the survey, and of those, 37 percent reported observing wrongdoing within the prior year.
The authors' model looked at the effect of several factors on the severity of retaliation, including the whistleblower's low power in the organization; the seriousness of the wrong-doing, including wrong-doer power; the effect of wrong-doing on the whistle-blower; and the lack of support that the whistleblower received from colleagues.
While the last three factors weighed heavily against female whistleblowers, the women surveyed were generally not deterred from pursuing their complaints. Surprisingly, a woman's rank did not insulate her from retaliation, even though power did help men. "Even if the woman had significant power within the organization, she still wasn't protected," says Prof. Miceli.
According to the study, the seriousness of the offense and the direct effect of the misconduct led to more severe retaliation for women than for men. As expected, both male and female whistle-blowers suffered more when they couldn't muster enough support from others in the organization.
Unlike previous studies about gender and whistleblowing that have examined the likelihood of men and women to report wrongdoing, this study examines the likelihood of retaliation and gender differences in response to that retaliation. Because the study was limited to a single organization, however, the authors call for research at additional organizations to validate the results among a broader population.
"Antecedents and Outcomes of Retaliation Against Whistleblowers: Gender Differences and Power Relationships" appears in Organization Science (Vol. 19, No. 2.), a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. In addition to Miceli, the co-authors include Michael T. Rehg of the Air Force Institute of Technology, Janet P. Near of Indiana University, and James R. Van Scotter of Louisiana State University.
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