Whistleblowers Counteracting Institutional Corruption

Seminar abstract

While various forms of corruption are common in many public institutions and businesses around the world, defining wrongdoing in terms of legality and the use of public officer for private gain obstructs our understanding of its nature and intractability.

To address this, this seminar proposes adopting the notion of institutional corruption (IC) development by political philosopher Dennis Thompson and legal expert Lawrence Lessig, as divergence from the original purpose of the institution, which may not be illegal but may nevertheless cause harm to people who depend on it by creating perverse dependencies and compelling individuals to act against its core purpose.

Such work is much needed to provide in-depth accounts of how external political and legislative pressures enable corruption, and to highlight the role of whistleblowing in restoring organisations to their core mission.

Specifically, this seminar will demonstrate how whistleblowers' disclosures are key to bringing organisations back on track, and concludes by arguing for whistleblower protection and reforms that enable them to speak-up in organisations.

Booking

This event is free to attend. We warmly encourage you to bring your friends, colleagues and classmates along.

Speaker bio

Professor Marianna Fotaki is a Professor of Business Ethics at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick.

She holds degrees in medicine, health economics, and a PhD in public policy from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Before joining academia in 2003 she has worked as a medical doctor in Greece, China and the UK, as a volunteer and manager for humanitarian organisations Médecins du Monde and Médecins sans Frontiers in Iraq and Albania, and as the EU senior resident adviser to governments in transition.

Marianna was a Network Fellow (2014-2015) at the Center for Ethics, Harvard University and co-directed an online think-tank, the Centre for Health and Public Interest pro bono from 2014 to 2017.

Dr Fotaki has published over 70 articles on gender, inequalities and the marketization of public services appearing in the leading international journals such as;

• Organizational Studies
• Organization
• Human Relations
• Public Administration 
• Sociology of Health and Illness
• Social Science and Medicine

She has also published books, some of here recent publications include;

• Gender and the Organization. Women at Work in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2017) co-authored with Nancy Harding
• Diversity, Affect and Embodiment in Organizing (Palgrave, 2019) co-edited with Alison Pullen
• The Psychosocial and Organizational Studies: Affect at Work (Palgrave, 2014) co-edited with Kate Kenny

Marianna's research interests include;

• Markets, Consumerism and Leadership in public services in the EU and economies in transition
• Gender and ethics in diversity in organisations
• Business ethics and the impact of business in society with focus on institutional corruption

She is currently working on a project in relation to whistleblowing (funded by the ESRC and British Academy/ Leverhulme Trust) as well as projects on solidarity responses to crisis and refugees arrivals in Greece.