You are a strategic planner for a multinational organization, which owns and manages tea plantations in a developing country. The organization's advertising emphasizes the organization's 'partnership with the developing world'. In recent weeks, the organization has been the subject of a series of critical articles in a national paper. The articles have contained detailed data about the pay and conditions on the plantations and have described those pay and conditions as exploitative. The newspaper has also commented unfavorably on the arrangements, which the organization has made with the country's government for the repatriation of profits. The information in the articles has been accurate, and it is evident that a member of the organization has been supplying the information, although the organization has a rule that a member of staff 'must not disclose commercial information to unauthorized persons' and another one which says that 'all contacts with the press must be handed by the properly authorized officers.' At a social function, a member of your department inadvertently makes it plain that it is she who has been supplying the information to the newspaper. She immediately recognizes what she has done and says you 'must ignore what I've said or I'll be fired'.

Questions

1. What should you do? 2. What view do you take of people who behave as the colleague has done, that is, who 'blew the whistle' on the organization? What general principles support your view?