Abstract
Organizational whistleblowers routinely encounter retaliation such as job loss, ostracism, intimidation, and death threats which can impact their “master status,” or core identity. Questions remain about whether whistleblowing experiences can “spill over” into homes, affecting family identities. This study aimed to understand how spillover related to whistleblowing affected family identity, and to identify communicative factors which influenced family identity (re)construction. Thirty one individuals, including 15 whistleblowers and 16 family members of whistleblowers, were interviewed for this study. Data analysis revealed three family identities emerged from whistleblowing experiences: affirmed families, wounded families, and fragmented families. Social support processes and boundary management played key roles in family identity (re)construction. These findings engender theoretical implications for effective negotiation of work-home spillover and social support processes, whistleblowing models, and whistleblowing policies’ impacts on families. Specifically, findings indicate boundary negotiation that facilitate matching levels of social support was integral to maintaining healthy family identities.
Organizational whistleblowing can be a harrowing, isolating experience (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011). Rothschild and Miethe (1999) found most whistleblowers lost their jobs and were blacklisted from being re-hired in their fields, and other studies found whistleblowers experienced death threats, physical intimidation, social ostracism, and negative media coverage (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011; Wilkes et al., 2011). Scholars contend whistleblowing can impact the “master status,” or core identity of whistleblowers (Rothschild & Miethe, 1999), in some cases altering how they see themselves (Gravley et al., 2015). Considering these dramatic outcomes on individuals’ identities, it seems possible whistleblowing experiences can “spill over” into the home, affecting family interactions, stress levels, and family identity. Although it has yet to be systematically studied, research indicates several ways organizational whistleblowing can indirectly and directly impact families. Rothschild and Miethe (1999) found whistleblowing led to problems with family members for over half the participants in their study. Research also indicates children can become direct targets of retaliation (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011) or can be used as pawns in retaliatory efforts, e.g. anonymous reports to Child Protective Services (Gravley et al., 2015). As indicators of work-life spillover, these sorts of intimidation tactics can be traumatic enough to lead whistleblowers, and their family members, to require mental health therapy (Kenny et al., 2019). Despite these findings, there is little research addressing how organizational whistleblowing impacts important familial dynamics, particularly family identity.
Family identity develops and is sustained through discourse (Galvin, 2006); likewise, family identifies can be transformed through discursive processes. While family identity is central to family life, offering members security, safety, and stability, it is tested in several ways by whistleblowing experiences. Whistleblowing cases are often marked by stigmatization (Gravley et al., 2015) and enduring stress (Alford, 2002), conditions that challenge existing family identities (Sporer & Toller, 2017). Individuals “consumed” with their whistleblowing cases (Alford, 2002) may be confronted with balancing their family responsibilities with attempts to end wrongdoing and seek justice. Research into whistleblowing’s impact on family identities can expand understanding of its negative consequences beyond those affecting solely the individual, and facilitate practitioners’ efforts to educate and equip employees who are contemplating reporting wrongdoing.
Considering family identity is socially constructed, communication scholars are particularly well-suited to examine these phenomena. Further, whistleblowing is a communicative act (Gravley et al., 2015); while the actual reporting may represent a singular event, whistleblowing is a process replete with many communicative exchanges. Whistleblowers often raise issues several times to multiple audiences, including with family members, vary their communication channels, and interpret and act on management’s responsiveness (Near & Miceli, 1995; Vandekerckhove & Phillips, 2019). Even labels ascribed to whistleblowers by organizational leaders, news media, and other stakeholders can have significant impacts on individuals and their families (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011). Of particular interest to this study are interactions within the context of home, where the whistleblower’s stress is evident, and discussions can address whether and how to blow the whistle, making sense of organizational responses to whistleblowing, and to what extent the whistleblower will pursue justice and truth. It is these conversations, along with associated, emotional effects of whistleblowing experiences that can impact or alter family identity (Galvin, 2006).
Thus, this exploratory study aimed to enhance understanding of how spillover related to whistleblowing affected family identity. Further, I sought to identify communication processes that played significant roles in identity (re)construction. Understanding these issues is critical as both whistleblowing and retaliation against whistleblowers appear to be rising (Dungan et al., 2019). This study addresses calls to better understand impacts of whistleblowing on families (Wilkes et al., 2011), the roles of families on whistleblowers’ perceptions and emotions (Gundlach et al., 2003), and influences of workplace experiences on family identity (Masterson & Hoobler, 2015). More importantly, this research will provide families strategies for navigating problematic consequences of whistleblowing cases.
Work-Life Spillover and Whistleblowing
Scholars are increasingly concerned with ways families are shaped by organizational, or work, issues (Cowan & Hoffman, 2007). This interest extends to work-family spillover or “the transmission of strain in one domain of an individual’s life to another, such as strain from work transferring to family” (Yucel, 2017, p. 176). Work-home spillover can be experienced psychologically (Schaer et al., 2008), though it is through communication that family and work connections are understood, maintained, and transferred (Krouse & Afifi, 2007).
Although scholars have investigated positive spillover effects, much research into work-life spillover addresses problematic outcomes associated with blending of work and home boundaries. Negative emotions transported from work, including stress, strain, depression, and burnout, can be “contagious; ” in other words, they can be brought home by one individual and embodied and spread by family members (Sanz-Vergel et al., 2012). Work interference with family has been linked to many deleterious outcomes including burnout, turnover, marital dissatisfaction, depression, and family related strain (Amstad et al., 2011). Typically, studies investigating work-family conflict explore antecedents experienced by most employees such as job involvement, time at work, work support, schedule flexibility, and job stress (Byron, 2005). More recently, scholars examined less traditional “spill over” circumstances including how those in dangerous occupations communicate their workplace experiences at home, and how traumatic events at work spill over into home life. Many of these studies include family members’ perspectives.
Research indicates individuals modify their communicative practices at home in response to family members’ dangerous occupations. For example, Bochantin (2016) found firefighters, police officers, and their family members performed emotional labor displays (e.g. children engaging in surface acting by putting on “brave faces”) as they negotiated their perceptions about and responses to dangers at work. With regard to traditional employees experiencing traumatic events, Lutgen-Sandvik (2006) found victims of workplace bullying routinely discussed their experiences with family members, though Tracy et al. (2006) recognized these conversations can transfer negative valence of abuse into victims’ home lives. Researchers have also linked workplace harassment to problematic outcomes at home. Specifically, Xin et al. (2017) found sexual harassment experiences (e.g. quid pro quo, crude behavior, unwanted advances) on the job were related to work-to-family conflict and spouse’s family satisfaction. Factors mitigating connections between work-life spillover and negative family outcomes include romantic partner’s use of humor (Horan et al., 2012) and family member social support (French et al., 2018).
Despite advances in understanding how traumatic work experiences may spill over into one’s home life and are ameliorated by social factors, whistleblowing presents a novel condition. First, retaliation that accompanies whistleblowing, akin to bullying, could be attributed as the whistleblower’s fault. Indeed, whistleblowers possess agency over their decisions to report, and family members could scapegoat the whistleblower for retaliation they receive (Wilkes et al., 2011). Second, victims of bullying, sexual harassment, and job loss, are typically not blackballed from their industries as frequently happens with whistleblowers (Rothschild & Miethe, 1999). While bullying victims can find work elsewhere, whistleblowers may struggle to do so. Whistleblowers are also less anonymous than traditional targets of uncivil workplace practices; many whistleblowers are named by media reports or organizational representatives (Richardson & McGlynn, 2011). In fact, when whistleblowers are “outed,” their entire families can perceive scrutiny from external audiences (McGlynn & Richardson, 2014; Wilkes et al., 2011). Whistleblowers who attempt to remain anonymous may experience less direct retaliation, though extant research suggests they are still subject to severe stress worrying about whether their identity will be exposed (Svenkerud, 2020). Finally, whistleblowing can transform an individual’s identity so greatly they are unable to see themselves in any other capacity. Alford (2002) contends “most whistleblowers are more attached to their acts than to the people affected by them” (p. 85). Managing work-home boundaries is a source of anxiety in normal work periods, and interjecting whistleblowing experiences into this dynamic will almost certainly result in carryover of strain from one’s workplace to their personal life (Krouse & Afifi, 2007). Thus, research indicates whistleblowing can impact individuals’ identities; questions remain about whether and how whistleblowing experiences affect family identity.
Family Identity
Our identities represent “a continuous project of answering ‘who am I’ questions,” of making sense of ourselves through communication (Meisenbach & Kramer, 2014, p. 190). One practical method for making sense of self is through our attachments to various social groups, including professions, organizations, and, relevant to this study, our families. Family identity represents “subjective sense of (the family’s) own continuity over time, its present situation, and its character” (Bennett et al., 1988, p. 212). It includes qualities and attributes making up a particular family and distinguishing it from other families. Families benefit from developing a “cohesive shared family identity,” which fosters feelings of belonging and well-being (Colaner et al., 2018, p. 394), and research indicates accommodative communication behaviors (e.g. self-disclosure) are predictive of shared family identity perceptions (Rittenour & Soliz, 2009). While generally stable, family identities can be altered as members make sense of and interact about situations challenging who they are and how they are perceived (Sporer & Toller, 2017).
Family identity is constituted in communication; it is created, affirmed, and evolves through discourse (Galvin, 2006). Through interaction, family members make sense of and communicate their perspectives on life’s issues and events, from the “normal” to the strange (Breshears, 2010). Therefore, family identity represents a process of social construction, maintenance, repair, and change via discourse (Galvin, 2006), but also a product through which families understand who they are and their relationships to others (Sporer & Toller, 2017). All families participate in “discourse-driven family identity building,” and those at the margins may find themselves more regularly “engaging in recurring discursive processes to manage and maintain identity” (Galvin, 2006, p. 3). For instance, stigmatization, which can derive from non-traditional sexual orientations (Breshears, 2010), children diagnosed with autism (Hays & Colaner, 2016), and family members with severe mental illness (Sporer & Toller, 2017), can challenge family identities. In these situations, individuals may recognize their family identities are different, fragmented, or “crumbling” (Sporer & Toller, 2017), and their talk typifies tensions like “normal and abnormal,” and “close but distant.”
Family identity offers members a sense of belonging, unity, and routine, but can be threatened by family members’ behaviors or negative judgements from external parties. Individuals are increasingly likely to engage in identity discourse with family members and others when family identity is threatened or called into question. In such cases, family members utilize several strategies to claim “normalcy” despite recognition their lives are anything but normal (Sporer & Toller, 2017). Galvin (2006) further suggests families marked as “different” engage in both external (e.g. labeling, explaining) and internal boundary management practices (e.g. family discussions) as part of their identity construction.
Whistleblowing has potential to contest family identity as this act can stigmatize whistleblowers and disrupt a family’s feelings of security due to job loss, being “blackballed,” death threats, health concerns, including mental and physical illness, and suicide ideation (Kenny et al., 2019; Rothschild & Miethe, 1999). Family members may blame the whistleblower for these problematic outcomes, questioning whether blowing the whistle was worth these and other costs (Gravley et al., 2015). With regard to spillover, whistleblowing experiences may come to dominate family interactions as some whistleblowers find it impossible to separate these two domains (Alford, 2001). Under such conditions, we would expect family members to engage in shared sensemaking, conversations, and dialogue about the whistleblowing and its impact on the family (Dahm et al., 2019), discourse that has potential to affect family identity. The present study aims to understand how whistleblowing affects family identity, and what processes contribute to family identity (re)construction. Communication processes linked to family identity construction, maintenance, and transformation, include supportive communication (Rittenour & Soliz, 2009), boundary management (Hays & Colaner, 2016), and communication openness (Colaner et al., 2018). Understanding how dimensions of communication affect family identity is important for scholars and practitioners in developing intervention strategies that mitigate stress of whistleblowing. Therefore, I posed the following research questions:
RQ1: How do whistleblowers and family members perceive whistleblowing experiences affected their family identities?
RQ2: What communicative processes contribute to the resultant family identities?
Method
Participants
The present study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the author’s home university; participants (N = 31) were at least 18 years of age and were either whistleblowers or whistleblowers’ family members. Recruitment occurred through three primary means: solicitations on whistleblowing support group list-serves, contacting whistleblowers I interviewed for previous research and inviting their family members to participate in this study, and contacting attorneys who represented individuals featured on CBS’ true-crime series Whistleblower. Of the 31 individuals who agreed to participate in the study, 15 were whistleblowers and 16 were family members of whistleblowers. The family members included six spouses (one husband, five wives), eight children (five daughters, three sons), one mother, and one father. Family types represented in the study included two-parent households with between 1–4 children and single-parent homes with between 1–4 children.
Participant Descriptions.
Procedures
I conducted semi-structured interviews with participants via Zoom or phone. One interview included a whistleblower and her two children, another involved the mother and father of a whistleblower, and the rest were conducted one-on-one. Interviews were recorded and transcribed by a paid service. Interview questions for whistleblowers addressed work history, wrongdoings they exposed, their decision-making processes, retaliation, and how the experience affected them; questions regarding families included the extent to which they communicated with family members about their cases, how the experience affected their home and personal lives, and how people perceived their family during this time. Questions for family members (spouses and children) included how they first learned of the whistleblowing, how it affected interaction with the whistleblower, emotions they experienced, and whether they felt whistleblowing was worth any costs to the family. Most questions were open-ended, allowing for follow-up probes when appropriate. Interviews ranged in length from 20 to 102 minutes (M = 51 minutes 1 ). Transcribed interviews resulted in 448 pages of single-spaced data.
Data analysis
I utilized Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step, thematic analysis method for data analysis. Their version of thematic analysis “is a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (p. 79); further, they provide a step-by-step explanation of their techniques because “clarity on process and practice of method is vital” (p. 80). The first phase of analysis involves familiarization with data which I achieved by reviewing the transcriptions, making notes in margins about prospective codes, themes, and ideas for theoretical directions. In Phase Two, I generated initial codes; my unit of analysis included each unique thought expression, or incident, uttered by participants (Charmaz, 2006) that addressed how the whistleblowing experience related to family dynamics. I created categories for incidents, then compared subsequent incidents and either (a) placed them into conceptually similar categories, or (b) created new categories when appropriate. Where possible, I utilized “in vivo” labels for codes to mark “participants’ special terms” and to “preserve participants’ meanings of their views and actions in the coding itself” (p. 55). This iterative process led to creation of 197 categories, such as “life changes quickly,” “family member strategizing,” and “spouse rationalizes wrongdoing.”
In the third phase, I reviewed categories, searching for themes. Themes were created by placing together topically similar categories, for example placing “family member angry at whistleblower” and “spouse trying to influence kids against whistleblower” within the theme “fragmented families.” Phase Four involves refinement of themes by removing those with little support, collapsing them into one another as applicable, and moving categories as appropriate. In the fifth phase, I defined and named themes, noting prospective connections between family identity themes and salient communication processes (e.g. communal coping), which provided a “thematic map” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 92) of the data and significantly accounted for participants’ experiences. In the final phase, I identified exemplars, or “particularly vivid examples” (p. 93) for themes.
Data Verification
I utilized three verification techniques (Creswell & Miller, 2000) to access credibility and trustworthiness of data analysis. First, I executed two peer debriefing sessions so that topic experts could review findings, play devil’s advocate, and make recommendations for sharpening my analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Both experts were communication scholars who had studied whistleblowing. They asked questions about analysis processes and how themes related to one another, and offered suggestions for “writing up” the study. Next, I reviewed the data for disconfirming evidence, or negative case studies, seeking those instances where data contradicted prevailing interpretation. Finally, I conducted a member check by asking a study participant – a whistleblower - to review my themes and confirm their credibility and resonance with her own experiences. She affirmed the findings reflected her experiences.
Findings
This study investigated effects of whistleblowing experiences on family identity and communicative contributors to those identities. Data analysis revealed emergent family identities following whistleblowing events, along with two processes that contributed to these identities. After describing themes addressing each RQ, I draw connections between these contributors and family identity. Participants were given pseudonyms to protect their identities.
Whistleblowing and Family Identity
Three family identities emerged, including what I termed “affirmed families,” “wounded families,” and “fragmented families.” It is worth noting lapsed time did not appear to determine family types. In other words, the issue of whether the whistleblowing cases had been resolved or were in situ did not seem to play a role in family identity. Still, considering family identity is socially constructed, it is plausible these identities could change over time.
Affirmed Families
These families were characterized by a sense of contentment, discourse revealing family growth and lessons learned, and satisfaction with level of involvement from each other during whistleblowing cases. This is not to suggest they did not, and in some cases still do, suffer for the whistleblowing. Rather, individuals in these families understood who they were to each other, were generally pleased with the whistleblower, and discussed their cases in ways that signified pride in ways the whistleblower and family members dealt with the stress they encountered. In some cases, whistleblowing experiences strengthened affirmed families’ shared family identity while for others it reified their identities in non-threatening ways. Of the 21 families represented in this study, 12 seemed to embody the “affirmed” theme.
Members of affirmed families noted the whistleblowing experience increased their cohesiveness. This phenomenon was exemplified by Ethan, who was terminated from his job after reporting financial fraud. He connected family closeness with his modelling of ethical behavior. He said So overall it drew my family more together. At times I think about it now and no matter how much you preach to a child ‘Do the right thing,’ there is nothing like showing them. And I’ve heard my children tell other people bits and pieces of my story and it just tears at my heartstrings because they know that I lived out what I say I believe. … I’m very blessed that I believe all my children have seen first-hand that you can do the right thing and win.
Family member Molly noted the affirming recognition her whistleblower mom received reflected positively on the entire family. She said I remember … there was a cardiologist … in the airport once and he said (to my mom) ‘You did the right thing, …there’s a portion of us that are behind you and we really do think that you were really strong in standing up for what you believe in.’ Those interactions really counteract (the bad publicity) so I’m like, … ‘see mom, people still support you, they still love you, you’re always going to be loved and appreciated.’
This example also demonstrates the importance of external legitimization for affirming family identity; family identity is constructed both internally, among members, and externally, based upon interactions with outsiders (Galvin, 2006). Molly’s example suggests she appreciated the validation from a stranger, which bolstered her sense of pride in her mother’s whistleblowing activities.
Participants in affirmed families were also more likely to tell their stories in ways that recognized or emphasized humor. Whistleblower Michelle’s comments revealed the importance of humor; she said “(My children) are wise beyond their years … I think because they grew up with (the whistleblowing) they’re kind of, quite resilient and they’ve got this whole humor around it. ‘Oh, my mom’s a whistleblower.’ (laughs). … I don’t think they bother about it so much.
Similarly, Hayden, whose dad was a whistleblower, said “I think it was just like a chapter and we kind of moved on. … It’s like a party trick now. We joke about it … but we don’t let it affect us anymore.” The metaphor of a closed book chapter, or the case being “behind us,” was used by several members of affirmed families, particularly when the whistleblowing case was resolved. Further, recognizing “learned lessons” from the experience also marked affirmed families. Family member Mary offered she used the whistleblowing case as a learning experience that helped her see others’ perspectives in her manager position. She added “I was very angry at first, but instead of being angry about this, let’s recognize this is what happens. … What can I do to help make sure what we went through …won’t happen to somebody else.”
For affirmed families, the experience reified their family roles and identity even when those were challenged. Family member Stephen indicated his family always “rolled with the punches.” He added, “But we’ve always been people that ‘you get dealt the cards you get dealt, and you play the hand you play.’” In another case, whistleblower Elizabeth suggested she was the family’s “black sheep.” Her decision to blow the whistle affirmed that role; though her family offered various forms of support, her whistleblowing efforts did not change family roles or identity. Her whistleblowing reified family members’ relationships with each other without traumatizing or fragmenting the family. Rather, the experience affirmed who they were, including challenging aspects of their relationship. Finally, in several affirmed families, it appeared other types of identities intersected with their whistleblowing experiences facilitating constructive outcomes. These included whistleblowers with professional backgrounds in military service, law enforcement, and accounting; these occupations apparently fostered professional identities that perceived organizational wrongdoing as a “black and white” proposition. Due to their training, both whistleblowers and their family members knew, at least retrospectively, how they would respond to unethical behavior, which likely affected how they made sense of and communicated about the whistleblower’s efforts. Similarly, for those participants who described their families as “fighters” or “social justice warriors,” the whistleblowing experience invigorated those identities. Despite severe retaliation that led to her husband’s early retirement, family member Carol said their whistleblowing experience was not “that big a deal” because it aligned with their lifelong identity as “activists” for the disenfranchised. These findings suggest other identities (e.g. professional, social justice, etc.) can intersect with whistleblowers’ decision-making processes and communication and sensemaking with family members. This pattern of alignment with existing professional and “social justice” identities that assisted affirmed families in navigating the whistleblowing process was not present in the other family types despite some of those whistleblowers possessing similar professional backgrounds.
Wounded Families
Six families epitomized the wounded category. While every family in the study was wounded by the whistleblowing experience, these families persisted in traumatized states. Many became isolated from professional, personal, and familial networks. They struggled to make sense of what had happened to them and their stories lacked the coherence of those relayed by affirmed families. Some of these families appeared to be very healthy and functional prior to the whistleblowing event while others seemed to have combative histories even before the whistleblowing occurred. Still, all “wounded” participants’ accounts were tinged with anger, depression or sadness about the experience.
Shelly and her daughter Amy typified the wounded family with their disagreement over how Amy perceived her mom’s whistleblowing experience. Shelly said, “She’s still (processing) it. There was a period when she did not like me very much. She’s angry … I understand that. … I don’t think I was as bad as she thinks I was, as bad a mother.” However, Amy disagreed with this sentiment about her feelings, saying “She thinks that I get very angry with her and that I’m kind of angry with her for putting me in this whole situation. And I’m not. I probably should be, but I’m not.” A sense of long-term sadness and isolation also marked accounts of those in wounded families. Whistleblower Keri commented, “I had always been a …goof and … very social. … I just really liked being alive and (now) ... I’m much more solitary. … It destroyed a big portion of my faith in people.” While affirmed families discussed whistleblowers with pride, some in the wounded category were still working though those feelings. Lexi, whose mom was a whistleblower, said I have quite a conflicted view on this. ... there is a baseline sense of pride, but it is not the first thing that I feel. … I’d just rather it not be my mom and that actually can make me feel quite guilty at times. … And I feel like when she retires, I’ll be able to relax. And until then, … we’re on edge.
Barbara (mother) and Lars (son) attribute her whistleblowing, at least partly, to their lingering, contentious relationship. Lars recalled a time when his in-laws were visiting and his mom continued to bring up her former employer. “I politely told my mom in (another language), so my in-laws couldn’t understand, … ‘please, can we talk about something else? It always ends up with (company). … she couldn’t stop talking about (company).” Lars added “she was so pissed … (this) was the most outrageous disrespect … She felt disrespected and diminished. … She was so hurt that I could tell her not to mention (the company) anymore.” Barbara’s rumination on her problems could not be matched with supportive communication from her son, leaving her dissatisfied and more stressed (Afifi et al., 2013). Further, her fixation on her whistleblowing case, marked by years of being ignored by her organization, served to isolate her family from potential support of her in-laws. Lastly, at least one participant had “buried” the whistleblowing experience and discussing it as part of this study had re-surfaced trauma from that period. Wendy’s comments resonated strongly with a wounded family. On one hand, she mentioned “we’re just going to keep moving forward,” which indicates attempts to move past the experience; however, she later said, I think we could probably say that (bad memories are still) there because that was trauma that we experienced that … I don’t think I’m fully healed from. If I was healed from that I wouldn’t have had all those emotions come back up when you first reached out to me or when (husband) actually ... first said to me, ‘Hey, would you be willing to talk with him?’ … I didn’t think that I was going to get immediately kind of like worked up and guarded again ... just thinking about that experience.
Wendy added she still regrets the extent of support she was able to provide her whistleblower husband. It is important to note at least one affirmed family spoke similarly of “burying” trauma of the whistleblowing event. What distinguished them from Wendy’s comments was that their shared narrative about the experience coalesced as they told it and was not tinged with regret over the way they handled the experience.
Fragmented Families
These three families were fundamentally transformed by whistleblowing experiences in relatively permanent ways including divorce, estrangement from children, and restructuring of core roles. Although apparently healthy and cohesive before the whistleblowing event, all were fundamentally changed by the experience. Teresa links her whistleblowing efforts to her current divorce proceedings. She said “I mentioned I was doing this interview and (my estranged husband) … began with all of this whistleblowing rhetoric, and blamed the whistleblowing for why our family broke down.” Later, as she attempted to make sense of this change in her home life, she said, “… he never let up on the negative connotation of my whistleblowing. … I can’t keep living with a person who has these feelings about me.” Indeed, whistleblowing experiences so pervaded some homes, family members no longer wanted to associate with subsequent negative feelings. Hannah discussed the long-term toll the whistleblowing experience took on her family. In essence, the experience led to estrangement from her adult children and grandchildren. She began to cry as she said But we are paying a big, big price for (the whistleblowing) nowadays. A very big price. Our children are all grown, the youngest is 28. And they are married, they have their own children, but they don’t want to have contact with us. Not because they’re against us. Absolutely not. But they don’t want to be involved in tension anymore. They don’t want to be reminded of the tensions anymore. They want to live a normal life. … It’s incredibly painful, but I understand.
While the effects of whistleblowing on Teresa and Hannah’s homes were physical separation, some families dealt with other permanent, damaging implications.
Whistleblower Kelvin preferred not to share information about this study with his wife, as doing so “would bring all of this up again.” He went on to say: (This experience) had a very serious effect on the dynamic within my family, particularly with the dynamic with my wife. … what this did was it altered the balance of power between us. … It was a kind of power imbalance that occurred that … is more or less I think a permanent one in terms of her mindset. Which is that she kind of regards me as inferior to her in terms of my financial capabilities.
Kelvin added his experience almost led to divorce, “that delicate balance that exists in a marriage was upset, and I think that it will not recover from that.”
Communicative Processes Contributing to Family Identity
Two processes seemed to weigh most heavily in affecting family identity. These included social support/communal coping and boundary management. Affirmed families generally engaged in social support/communal coping and were mindful of boundary management.
Social Support/Communal Coping
Affirmed families tended to engage in appropriate levels of social support behaviors, recognizing what whistleblowers needed and matching that expectation. Social support refers to ‘‘what individuals say and do to help one another’’ (Goldsmith, 2004, p. 13), and is linked to reduced stress, depression, mental health concerns, and anxiety. Cheryl, whose father Frederick blew the whistle said, “… we have to support him. And that’s from my mum being very … ‘we’re in this together no matter what’ sort of thing.” Family members also demonstrated support with their concerns about the whistleblower’s safety, health, and future opportunities. These feelings were epitomized by Colleen who noted “It bothered me because it bothered him. … I was really worried about (him) because he was so emotional … so angry. … that level of anger is not real healthy. So I was real worried about him.”
Members of affirmed families offered instrumental, or practical, forms of support. Whistleblower Michelle and her husband are both attorneys, and she utilized his expertise for her case. She commented “I would maybe share something … with my husband on the writing part (of my case) … because he’s a very good drafter and ask his opinion.” On occasion, family members defended the whistleblower to external groups. Whistleblower Elizabeth noted her mom supported her on a Facebook group associated with her former organization, and her sister offered comments following a news story about her. She said, “So when the Wall Street Journal published a blog my sister actually anonymously posted comments in support of me.” In addition to these gestures, most affirmed families also engaged in communal coping, while fragmented/wounded families were less likely to do so.
Communal coping represents situations in which group members view a stressor as shared, and one to be addressed, collectively (Afifi et al., 2006). Affirmed families – particularly whistleblowers and their spouses - tended to align with this approach by co-managing the whistleblowing case and its effects on the family. Stephen and his whistleblower wife exemplified the communal coping characteristic of “we talk.” Though his wife was the whistleblower, Stephen seemed to treat their problem as shared between them. He said, “To us, (whistleblowing) was the right thing to do … we didn’t look at it as a monetary gain. We looked at it as being right or wrong. … we just figured is the right thing to do.” Colleen noted she was “probably a better strategist” than her whistleblowing husband so “we confided a lot” on next steps. Ethan’s case exemplified communal coping. He discussed sharing details of his case with his wife daily, often while engaging physical activity. He said, “… the only thing that eased (my stress) was physical activity. Me and my wife would go to a local park and just walk and walk and walk. … so that I’m so tired that I’m not thinking of it anymore.”
Conversely, fragmented and wounded families utilized fewer of these strategies. Teresa, whose whistleblowing partly led to her divorce, never received support from her estranged husband. Instead, he embarrassed her to external parties about her efforts. She commented, “He never let up on the negative connotation of my whistleblowing. … like, he would do it publicly as well, which was really hurtful.” Relatedly, when Lars was asked what emotions he remembered from his mother’s whistleblowing experience, he said “mostly anger at her because she wasn’t able to manage the situation.” Indicative of wounded families, Wendy still expressed guilt for her lack of support for her husband’s efforts. She said … many times when he maybe could have used someone to listen, his partner to listen, he didn’t (bring it up), because he knew that immediately I would poke... and ask more questions and then get irritated. … We haven’t really talked about that. But I do feel like there were a lot of times where he could have used a set of ears and... I was not that person for him, so... that’s unfortunate.
Boundary Management
Whistleblowers in affirmed families regulated boundaries between personal and professional domains so levels of information and stress they brought into their homes could be managed by social support they received. Family members further suggested they conversed with whistleblowers before they blew the whistle which seemed to foster greater openness as cases progressed. Additionally, these families had conversations about how they would manage personal-professional boundaries during this time. Many spouses shared a great deal between themselves, while limiting information disclosed to children to protect them. For example, William’s wife was supportive of his whistleblowing efforts but they mutually agreed that he would not constantly update her with case details. He said, “… she wanted to have kind of a sense of normalcy, with our kids being young.” Sometimes family members encouraged opening of boundaries to facilitate support of whistleblowers. This was evidenced by spouse Dawn who said: “It was very much, ‘Talk to me. Tell me what you need to be talking about.’ I could see the stress. … I wanted to be there for him to talk about whatever he needed to talk about.” Other affirmed families revealed how they negotiated boundaries, as this exchange between whistleblower and single parent Meryl and daughter Molly conveys: Meryl: “… it's one of those things as a parent you don't want to lay too much on them, but they're young adults and they knew that I was undergoing a lot of stress and concerned about what was happening to ladies and their babies, so I don't think I’d belabored the point too much. Did I? Molly: … more like we were like ‘mom what's going on, like, tell us, you know,’ like ‘unload something,’ because she did want to protect us from all of it, but also she's a human and she needs to vent every once in a while.
In one affirmed family (whistleblower Fred and wife Sheryl), a young daughter was being traumatized by the whistleblowing experience. She told a therapist, “I’m not allowed to be unhappy, … (because) my mom and dad… they’re always unhappy.” Realizing they were allowing stress effects from whistleblowing to spill into home caused the couple to draw strict boundaries there about discussing the case. Fred said, “We (realized) she didn’t go to (my workplace), so she shouldn’t have to be exposed to that and we found that we could take our fight with (the organization) out the door.”
Fragmented and wounded families were characterized by whistleblowers who either maintained too rigid boundaries or demonstrated no boundaries between their work and home lives. Thus, they either did not provide enough information (e.g. under communicated) to their families, or overwhelmed them with information. These practices isolated whistleblowers from family members due to their under-sharing, or isolated their families from potential networks of support due to their over-sharing of information. Whistleblower Kelvin, who experienced suicide ideation, told his family almost nothing about his case; he took on all the stress himself which ultimately affected his health and his family’s identity. He said
I was very economical with the amount of information I shared, and that meant ... I was internalizing this... and that turned out to be … I mean this literally, almost fatal. I maintained the separation very strictly. And what I later learned once I kind of recovered and came through this was that there was lot going on around me that I wasn’t aware ... I would be walking down the street, and … out in a public place I would start to cry.
Other whistleblowers in these families greatly restricted what they said about their cases, including single parents not comfortable burdening their children with stress. Finally, a couple of whistleblowers became overly open about their cases, which may have been too much for their family members. In reference to his whistleblower mom, Lars said, “Then she started talking about it, I would say nonstop. … she couldn’t have a conversation and still yet today without mentioning (the company).” This whistleblower may have opened boundaries between work and home too much and overwhelmed her son to the point where he could not provide levels of support she wanted.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate whistleblowing’s effects on family identity. Data analysis revealed three distinct family types resulted from whistleblowing, including affirmed, wounded, and fragmented. The study also surfaced two communicative processes, social support/communal coping and work-family boundary management, as particularly relevant in constructing these types. Next, I offer theoretical and practical implications of this research.
Contributions to Theory and Practice
As early as 1987, Jensen recognized prospective whistleblowers need to consider “will the act … adversely affect one’s family?” (p. 325). However, other than a handful of studies (Rothschild & Miethe, 1999; Wilkes et al., 2011), which do not include family members’ perspectives, we know almost nothing about this dynamic. Although family effects are referenced in whistleblowing research, they tend to be relegated to brief mentions with greater focus on whistleblowers’ experiences. Based upon this study’s results, whistleblowing can have dramatic effects on families. Participants expressed how job loss, persistent stress, social ostracism, lawsuits, and changes in the personalities of the whistleblower affected family interactions, the core element of family identity (Hays & Colaner, 2016). In some cases, the family co-constructed an identity marked by working together to overcome adversity, being mindful of communication boundaries, and using humor to make sense of the experience. These affirmed families survived the whistleblowing experience, their family identities (re)constituted in constructive ways. Those families characterized as wounded or fragmented struggled to coalesce around shared meanings of what was happening to them post whistleblowing. They have yet to collectively make sense of what happened to them in ways that productively affirm who they are. We know whistleblowing can transform individual’s identities (Gravley et al., 2015; Rothschild & Miethe, 1999), and this study’s findings suggest the act can also affect family identity.
A key contribution of this research is recognition that whistleblowing affects family identity at intersections of work-family boundary negotiation and social support processes. Scholars have long recognized workplace conditions, situations, and resultant affective states can spill over into an individual’s home life, influencing behavior at home, and eventually affecting family member’s wellbeing (Sanz-Vergel et al., 2012). In order to mitigate negative effects of work-family spillover, individuals can limit how much they share about experiences from one domain to another (Clark, 2000). The term “balance,” typically connotes individuals striving for satisfactory equilibrium between their work and non-work lives (Caven & Raiden, 2010). The present study suggests a conceptualization of balance as balancing levels of spillover with suitable quantities of social support. Further, “spillover” here refers not merely to whether and how much the whistleblower shared information relevant to their cases, but also sharing their affective states, and how whistleblowing affected them emotionally. This study’s findings suggest it was not solely the amounts of these forms of spillover that mattered, but how the whistleblower negotiated these factors with family members. Specifically, most affirmed families in this study negotiated, and often re-negotiated, how much whistleblowers would share with their family members. In fact, some families negotiated less talk about whistleblowing at home in order to protect young children from negative spillover effects. Other affirmed families encouraged the whistleblower to share more so spouses and/or children could provide adequate social support. This, in turn, facilitated family members’ sharing appropriate levels of supportive communication, the type frequently linked to shared family identities (Rittenour & Soliz, 2009). Conversely, wounded and fragmented families apparently did not reach agreement on how much whistleblowers should share about their stories, their stress, and their commitment to their causes.
Affirmed families’ boundary negotiation, whether explicit or implicit, fostered stasis, a state of equilibrium, with regard to appropriate levels of spillover. Specifically, whistleblowers in these families described their levels of whistleblowing-related spillover were “matched” by the amount of social support they received. This appeared to coalesce the family around the whistleblowing case rather than causing longlasting harm to their identities. Fragmented and wounded families failed to negotiate appropriate amounts of spillover and social support, a condition that led to either whistleblowers’ under- or over-sharing their experiences. In some of these families, whistleblowers openly desired support but instead received ridicule from some family members. In these cases, the spillover-support levels were not in stasis. Overall, these families did not engage in discourse-dependent identity work so necessary for families marked by difference or divergence from normative behavior (Galvin, 2006). Indeed, fragmented and wounded families seemed to fall into one (or more) of three patterns: too little spillover to encourage support; too little support to match adequate spillover; and, too much spillover for support capabilities. In some cases, the (whistleblowing) problem became the burden of one individual who absorbed all the resultant pressure themselves which affected their home life via neglect, distraction, or overwhelming stress. For other whistleblowers, their cases represented workplace events that “flooded” their homes with potential to leave fragmented families in its wake. Based upon this study’s results, families involved in whistleblowing cases – and possibly other forms of trauma – should negotiate how much information, mood, and attitude, they allow to spill over into their homes and match social support to those levels.
Though they recounted more examples of internal interactions, wounded and fragmented families also had different external boundary experiences than affirmed families. Specifically, they experienced isolation more so than affirmed families, which prevented them from engaging external audiences for sensemaking and expressions of solidarity. Whether isolation was self-imposed (e.g. Keri, Kelvin), brought on by whistleblowers’ fixation on their cases (Barbara), or from family members’ public criticism (Teresa), these families were afforded fewer opportunities to “make sense” of and find validation for the whistleblower’s efforts. Sharing stories with external parties is valuable for sensemaking around abnormal situations and can foster cohesiveness for affected groups (Dougherty & Smythe, 2004), something wounded and fragmented families struggled to accomplish. Considering the importance of interacting with external parties for constructing family identity, particularly when those identities are stigmatized (Galvin, 2006), it may be beneficial for whistleblowing families to engage external parties to explain, legitimize, and defend the whistleblower’s actions.
This research also contributes to whistleblowing scholarship. The study privileges the voices of whistleblowers and their family members, enabling them to relate their stories of how the experience affected them and their familial relationships. It offers a foundational perspective into how whistleblowing can affect families. Based upon this study’s findings, notions of “effective whistleblowing” should be expanded to include family preservation. Near and Miceli’s (1995) seminal definition of effective whistleblowing defines this outcome as “extent to which the questionable or wrongful practice (or omission) is terminated at least partly because of whistle-blowing and within a reasonable time frame” (p. 681). This definition, and others of effective whistleblowing (c.f. Dworkin & Baucus, 1998) focus primarily on organizational interests with less concern for whistleblower well-being. These definitions beg the question, “effective whistleblowing for whom?” Although society may term such whistleblowing as “effective,” whistleblowers who suffer family-related trauma may not. Addendums to this definition including “while preserving the whistleblower’s mental health” and “protecting their families” are warranted.
Next, this study recognizes family members’ impacts on whistleblowing processes and persistence over time, a phenomenon generally ignored in most whistleblowing research. For example, Vandekerckhove and Phillips’ (2019) description of whistleblowing processes recognizes many individuals do not follow-up when their initial reports are not appropriately resolved. Even fewer continue to blow the whistle to other parties that may affect change, raising questions of what processes contribute to whistleblowing persistence or giving up. This study’s results raise possibilities that individuals’ conversations with family members may play a key role in their whistleblowing decisions and commitment to their causes. Relatedly, several whistleblowers suggested being a role model for their children was a primary reason for their actions. This sort of “family-to-work spillover” (Krouse & Afifi, 2007) should be integrated into models describing whistleblowing decision-making processes and experiences. Indeed, family identity and whistleblowing may exert mutual influence on one another; in some instances (e.g. social justice-oriented families), existing family identities likely enhanced motivation for individuals to report unethical behavior. In such cases, as the family encountered various stressors associated with reporting wrongdoing, their family identity sustained them while the whistleblowing simultaneously affirmed who they were. While this study focused on effects of whistleblowing on family identity, future studies might consider mutual influence of family identity and whistleblowing experiences occurring over time.
Next, this study illuminates “policy-ing work life in organizations” (Kirby & Buzzanell, 2014, p. 353) within the context of organizational whistleblowing. Findings suggested, and participants agreed, when whistleblowing is not protected by organizational policy or federal/state law, organizations can retaliate at will, causing undue stress for whistleblowers and their families. Countries, including the United States, have made progress in passing whistleblower protection laws that offer procedures and protections for whistleblowers (West & Bowman, 2020). Still, some promised regulations for implementing whistleblowing protection have languished in federal agencies (Foldy, 2021), while other sectors offer little protection. Based upon this study’s results, laws and organizational policies should be developed and continuously updated to offer protection for whistleblowers and, when warranted, compensation for their families. Michelle, an attorney and whistleblower interviewed for this study, suggested “we should really think about … how we can compensate families … when you see what some families go through.” This study’s results suggest whistleblower protection laws that extend to protecting and aiding family members is warranted.
This study’s findings can be utilized for additional, practical advice for whistleblowers and their families. First, prospective whistleblowers should reach out to whistleblower support groups (e.g. those mentioned in the Method section of this study), prior to whistleblowing. These support groups can offer legal advice, offer suggestions for how to proceed professionally and personally, and most importantly, communicate to whistleblowers they are not alone in this experience. Next, it appears families benefit from negotiating boundaries around whistleblowing cases early in the process. Such conversations should include providing relevant details about the situation, coming to agreement about how much to share with each other and children (if applicable), but being flexible enough to renegotiate these boundaries as exigencies of cases evolve. By establishing a foundation of interaction early in the process, communication can become a normative behavior for families in dire need of the discourse necessary to constructively manage family identity (Galvin, 2006). Finally, whistleblowing law firms and support groups would also be wise to offer communal coping training to families. Communal coping provides a systemic approach to managing stressors; it considers both issues and responsibility for dealing with stressors as shared, or “our problem, our responsibility” (Lyons et al., 1998). By engaging in communal coping strategies such as acknowledging a problem is shared amongst the group, providing information to one another, and co-constructing a new family narrative (Richardson & Maninger, 2016), families can attack whistleblowing stress together.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
This study provides a foundation for future research into whistleblowing’s effects on families. Still, its findings should be interpreted in light of several limitations. First, one interview was conducted as a dyad, and another with a family of three. Although these interview structures can surface shared family concerns and allow participants to build on one another’s ideas, they can limit openness due to power differences or existing relational patterns (Denker, 2013). Second, the study’s sample, while international in scope, was not racially diverse. Future research can incorporate greater diversity to ensure variation of perspectives are represented. Similarly, it is possible individuals in non-Western democracies (e.g. particular Asian, African, and South American countries) have different whistleblowing conceptions and experiences than those presented here. Examining their perspectives should be prioritized for future inquiry. Future research should also consider the possibility that other identities, including professional identity, might intersect with individuals’ and families’ whistleblowing experiences. Though not the primary focus of this study, researchers should examine how these other identities affect whistleblowing cases, including propensity to blow the whistle. Anonymity is another critical factor in whistleblowing experiences; researchers should investigate whether and how whistleblowers’ attempts to maintain anonymity affects family communication and identity. Relatedly, although the present study focused on family effects after whistleblowing had occurred, researchers could assess how family conversations influence an individual to blow the whistle in the first place. Finally, researchers should examine key factors, including socio-economic status, number and age of children, and duration of whistleblowing process, to assess how they mediate the relationship between whistleblowing and key family dynamics.
Conclusion
The present study represents an exploratory effort to enhance understanding of organizational whistleblowing, family social support, and family identity. It is important this line of research continues. Unethical and illegal behavior is pervasive in contemporary organizations, and whistleblowers often represent an important mechanism for bringing these activities to light. However, whistleblowing is rife with risks, including a number of retaliatory responses and stressors that can spill over into whistleblowers’ personal lives. When we understand more precisely how whistleblowing affects families, we can develop interventions and offer advice on the best ways to navigate this stressful, uncertain, and precarious experience.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the participation of the whistleblowers, who risked a great deal to disclose corruption, and their family members for participating in this study. The author also wishes to thank editor Dr Rebecca Meisenbach and three anonymous reviewers whose feedback substantively improved this work.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
