Public Relations and Whistleblowing: Golden Handcuffs in Corporate Wrongdoing

There is a growing interest in corporate whistleblowing, but no comprehensive research has yet focused on public relations practice. Drawing on extensive research on Fortune 1000 and Wilshire 5000 corporations, this book reveals executives’ attitudes and relationships toward their organizations and their impact on whistleblowing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it reveals that wrongdoing in corporations and the privileges of power coexist. Top-ranking public relations executives, who are mostly white and male, are more likely to be aware of wrongdoing but no more likely to blow the whistle, fundamentally due to their positive relationship with their employers. Using the new lens of evolutionary theory, this study explains whistleblowing, retaliation, and relationships, and in the light of the connection between whistleblowing behavior and executives’ attitudes, it proposes a new theory of the phenomenon of Golden Handcuffs.

As public attitudes to corporations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and transparency harden, these findings have serious implications for companies globally. Researchers, scholars, and advanced students in public relations, organizational communication, corporate communication, strategic communication, corporate reputation, and CSR will find this book full of revealing insights.

Dr. Cary. A. Greenwood, APR, Fellow PRSA, (Ph.D. University of Oregon), is assistant professor and public relations sequence head at Middle Tennessee State University, where she teaches crisis communication and public relations campaigns. She has more than 30 years’ experience in public relations, including eight years in corporate communications management for a Fortune 500 utility, seven years as public affairs director for a state natural resource agency, and two years in transportation management. Her research interests are whistleblowing, corporate social responsibility, and evolutionary theory. Dr. Greenwood has presented her research on evolutionary theory at the International Communication Association and the Society for Consumer Psychology, and she has published on evolutionary theory in the　Journal of Public Relations Research　and　New Frontiers in branding: Attitudes, attachments, and relationships. She was named Arthur W. Page Legacy Scholar 2012-2013.