The Ethics Of The Corporate Or Government Environment Essay

Working in the corporate or government environment, employees sometimes witness things that are unethical to society or to the corporation. Many times these things are also illegal. The employee is then inadvertently put into a difficult situation. Should they speak up about the activities they witnessed or should they keep quiet for the sake of not causing problems or not losing their job? This is a very complex question to answer and each individual justifies their decisions differently depending on their morals, values, and principles.
The employee that decides to speak up and expose the violation is called a whistleblower. In many situations, there is no threat posed to national security, especially if the offence took place in corporations such as a car manufacturing company or a meat slaughterhouse. However, other situations can be more involved. Many times a government employee with classified clearance is also thrown into situations where they must decide whether to speak up about the corruption or not. The information they reveal could be classified and therefore could violate an organizations policies, laws, or possess an imminent threat to either public interest or national security. The information or allegations of a whistleblower could be either brought internally or externally. Internally, a whistleblower can bring the accusation to the attention of others within the accused organization; whereas, externally, allegations are only brought to light through the…