Abstract
The decision to blow the whistle in any organization is a very difficult moral and ethical decision. Increasingly, it is becoming something that is more common in the era of large organisations, especially large governmental organizations like the United States Department of Defence. The United States Department of Defence is unique because of its mission, size and having geography dispersed facilties all over the world. These factors combined with a multi-billion dollar annual budget and layers of bureaucracy allow abuse to remain deliberately hidden or go unnoticed. Despite this, little research has been done concerning the incidence of whistle-blowing in government. Even less research has been done on whistle-blowing in the Department of Defence. This thesis examines the role that whistle-blowers play in maintaining good governance and accountability in the Department of Defence. This thesis sets the stage for whistle-blowing detailing its origins and current use. Moreover, it analyses and describes a model that includes overt and covert actions that employers are likely take against the whistle-blower. This thesis is a qualitative work that uses analytic autoethnography as its methodology. Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing used to describe and analyse personal experience in order to understand a specific cultural experience. In addition to personal experience, individual interviews with other whistle-blowers are incorporated to demonstrate the typical four step response organizations take in dealing with whistle-blowers; placate, attack, delegitimize and ignore. Given the size, scope and role that government plays in the day-to-day life of the population of all countries, this phenomenon needs to be studied further.