ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of whistle blowing may stir up images of the uncovering of unethical practices in various businesses, but in a loose sense, it has occurred since the mid-1800s within corporate organizational structures. Generally, it is someone telling the truth about wrong actions taken by an entity to some agency, which can bring to bear some type of ramifications on the entity at hand. To better understand what whistle blowing is, we consider the salient features of a few contemporary definitions, the context in which it occurs, and the ethical tensions involved. We then turn to important public policy questions related to whistle blowing.
