<P> There is limited research on the psychological impacts of whistle blowing . However, poor experiences of whistleblowing can cause a prolonged and prominent assault upon staff well being . As workers attempt to address concerns, they are often met with a wall of silence and hostility by management . Some whistleblowers speak of overwhelming and persistent distress, drug and alcohol problems, paranoid behaviour at work, acute anxiety, nightmares, flashbacks and intrusive thoughts . Depression is often reported by whistleblowers, and suicidal thoughts may occur in up to about 10% . General deterioration in health and self care has been described . The range of symptomatology shares many of the features of posttraumatic stress disorder, though there is debate about whether the trauma experienced by whistleblowers meets diagnostic thresholds . Increased stress related physical illness has also been described in whistleblowers . The stresses involved in whistleblowing can be huge . As such, workers remain afraid to blow the whistle, in fear that they will not be believed or they have lost faith in believing that anything will happen if they do speak out . This fear may indeed be justified, because an individual who feels threatened by whistleblowing, may plan the career destruction of the' complainant' by reporting fictitious errors or rumours . This technique, labelled as' gaslighting' is a common, unconventional approach used by organizations to manage employees who cause difficulty by raising concerns . In extreme cases, this technique involves the organization or manager proposing that the complainant's mental health is unstable . Organizations also often attempt to ostracise and isolate whistleblowers by undermining their concerns by suggesting that these are groundless, carrying out inadequate investigations or by ignoring them altogether . Whistleblowers may also be disciplined, suspended and reported to professional bodies upon manufactured pretexts . Where whistleblowers persist in raising their concerns, they increasingly risk detriments such as dismissal . Following dismissal, whistleblowers may struggle to find further employment due to damaged reputations, poor references and blacklisting . The social impact of whistleblowing through loss of livelihood (and sometimes pension), and family strain may also impact on whistleblowers' psychological well being . Whistleblowers may also experience immense stress as a result of litigation regarding detriments such as unfair dismissal, which they often face with imperfect support or no support at all from unions . Whistleblowers who continue to pursue their concerns may also face long battles with official bodies such as regulators and government departments . Such bodies may reproduce the "institutional silence" by employers, adding to whistleblowers' stress and difficulties . In all, some whistleblowers suffer great injustice, that may never be acknowledged or rectified . Such extreme experiences of threat and loss inevitably cause severe distress and sometimes mental illness, sometimes lasting for years afterwards . This mistreatment also deters others from coming forward with concerns . Thus, poor practices remain hidden behind a wall of silence, and prevent any organization from experiencing the improvements that may be afforded by intelligent failure . Some whistleblowers who part ranks with their organizations have had their mental stability questioned, such as Adrian Schoolcraft, the NYPD veteran who alleged falsified crime statistics in his department and was forcibly committed to a mental institution . Conversely, the emotional strain of a whistleblower investigation is devastating to the accused's family . </P> <P> The definition of ethics is the moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior . The ethical implications of whistleblowing can be negative as well as positive . However, sometimes employees may blow the whistle as an act of revenge . Rosemary O'Leary explains this in her short volume on a topic called guerrilla government . "Rather than acting openly, guerrillas often choose to remain "in the closet," moving clandestinely behind the scenes, salmon swimming upstream against the current of power . Over the years, I have learned that the motivations driving guerrillas are diverse . The reasons for acting range from the altruistic (doing the right thing) to the seemingly petty (I was passed over for that promotion). Taken as a whole, their acts are as awe inspiring as saving human lives out of a love of humanity and as trifling as slowing the issuance of a report out of spite or anger ." For example, of the more than 1,000 whistleblower complaints that are filed each year with the Pentagon's Inspector General, about 97 percent are not substantiated . The negative results of being a whistleblower could be one being seen as a traitor, a hero, or just one of the majority (97 percent) whistleblowers who are simply disgruntled with a perceived but not true unfairness . It is believed throughout the professional world that an individual is bound to secrecy within their work sector . Discussions of whistleblowing and employee loyalty usually assume that the concept of loyalty is irrelevant to the issue or, more commonly, that whistleblowing involves a moral choice that pits the loyalty that an employee owes an employer against the employee's responsibility to serve the public interest . Robert A. Larmer describes the standard view of whistleblowing in the Journal of Business Ethics by explaining that an employee possesses prima facie (based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise) duties of loyalty and confidentiality to their employers and that whistleblowing cannot be justified except on the basis of a higher duty to the public good . It is important to recognize that in any relationship which demands loyalty the relationship works both ways and involves mutual enrichment . </P> <P> The ethics of Edward Snowden's actions have been widely discussed and debated in news media and academia worldwide . Edward Snowden released classified intelligence to the American people in an attempt to allow Americans to see the inner workings of the government . A person is diligently tasked with the conundrum of choosing to be loyal to the company or to blow the whistle on the company's wrongdoing . Discussions on whistleblowing generally revolve around three topics: attempts to define whistleblowing more precisely, debates about whether and when whistleblowing is permissible, and debates about whether and when one has an obligation to blow the whistle . </P> <P> Many whistleblowers have stated that they were motivated to take action to put an end to unethical practices, after witnessing injustices in their businesses or organizations . A 2009 study found that whistleblowers are often motivated to take action when they notice a sharp decline in ethical practices, as opposed to a gradual worsening . There are generally two metrics by which whistleblowers determine if a practice is unethical . The first metric involves a violation of the organization's bylaws or written ethical policies . These violations allow individuals to concretize and rationalize blowing the whistle . On the other hand, "value - driven" whistleblowers are influenced by their personal codes of ethics . In these cases, whistleblowers have been criticized for being driven by personal biases . </P>

Discuss the issue of whistleblowing in the it context