Whistleblowers and their Allies: Reframing resistance and external disclosures

Seminar abstract

How are alliances formed between organizational resisters and external supporters?

In whistleblowing disclosures, partners play a central role in sustaining the whistleblower and ensuring that the information they hold comes to light. 

But partners are elusive and difficult to secure.

In this seminar Professor Kate Kenny will present findings from recent qualitative research into external whistleblowing disclosures—that is—disclosures to outside parties.

She argues that the success of a disclosure is contingent upon the enrolment of a whistleblower in an emergent, affective, network of support, and the embedding of their information about wrongdoing in a broader cause.

The data analysis draws on political (Gramsci, Laclau and Mouffe) and psychosocial feminist theory (Benjamin, Butler).  

Whistleblowers’ disclosures are a crucial mechanism for safeguarding our democratic institutions, consumer rights and safety, at a time when organizational secrecy is on the rise and traditional modes of transparency wane.

As such whistleblowers represent a critical aspect of resistance against organizational wrongdoing. While help from external parties-- journalists, activists or politicians for example-- is critical for the success of a disclosure, whistleblowers frequently struggle in the face of public ambivalence and a hostile, retaliatory organization.

This aspect of the whistleblowing process remains under-researched in organization and management studies, and business ethics.

Booking

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We warmly encourage you to join in with your friends, colleagues and classmates.

Join this seminar online on Wednesday 24 March 2021 at 12pm

Speaker bio

Kate Kenny is Professor of Business and Society at NUI Galway’s School of Business and Economics and the Whitaker Institute.

She has held research fellowships at the Edmond J. Safra Lab at Harvard University and Cambridge's Judge Business School.

Professor Kenny’s work has been published in Organization Studies, Organization, Gender Work and Organization, ephemera and Human Relations among other journals.

Her books include;

• Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory (Harvard University Press, 2019), 
• The Whistleblowing Guide (Wiley Business, 2019, with W. Vandekerckhove and M. Fotaki), 
• Understanding Identity and Organizations (Sage 2011, with A. Whittle and H. Willmott),
• Affect at Work: The Psychosocial and Organization Studies (Palgrave 2014, with M. Fotaki).

Professor Kenny serves on the editorial boards of Human Relations, Organization, and Organization Studies.