We focus on critical dimensions of digital responsibility, information technology and whistleblowing:

• Digital Whistleblowing Speak-up Arrangements;
• Whistleblower Networks- Partners and Allies;
• Democracy, Critique and Whistleblowing;
• Whistleblowing and Decent Work in Software & Services Sectors;
• Open Source Whistleblowing Systems in Practice;
• Whistleblowing and Decent Work in Global South Software Workplaces.

Get in touch: kate.kenny@universityofgalway.ie

Upcoming Projects in Digital Responsibility:

Towards An Ethically Sustainable And Resilient Healthcare With Systems Thinking

This two-year research endeavour addresses accountability and resilience in healthcare whistleblowing systems. It focuses on healthcare professionals' perspectives, using mixed-methods analysis and systems thinking. The study employs the Whistleblowing in Health Care© instrument to gather data on individual whistleblowing and participatory methods for team-level analysis. It aims to develop a theoretical framework for understanding whistleblowing dynamics in healthcare, offering practical recommendations for stakeholders. Outcomes include a refined whistleblowing instrument, international data collection, and insights for ethical policymaking. The project lays the groundwork for an ethics simulation software promoting sustainable healthcare practices.  Forthcoming 2025-2026

Funded By: The SyMeCo Postdoctoral fellowship programme coordinated by Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, and co-funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND programme and Science Foundation Ireland.

Whistleblowing in Big Tech**

Whistleblowing is crucial for ensuring responsible technology. Knowledgeable and experienced workers speaking out about ethical concerns can sometimes be the only means we have available to learn about problematic practices within tech companies.  Tech whistleblowers have disclosed breaches in data privacy, worker discrimination, AI over-reach, technology misuse and the disproportionate power of algorithms, and continue to speak up.

Whistleblowers exposing wrongdoing provide a critical resource for other civil society actors-- journalists, activists, politicians for example-- to hold companies accountable and prompt ethical reforms, regulatory action, and greater transparency and integrity in the tech sector. What are the challenges for individual tech professionals speaking out today? What forms of reprisal exist? What role does 'pre-taliation' play,  intercepting speak-up via surveillance practices and secrecy contracts relating to the over-use of NDAs? How does country context (in Europe HQs, in the US) influence capacity for tech professionals to speak out? Get in touch.

Speak-Up Systems & Digital Platforms

New technologies are at the core of ongoing reform in the organizational speak-up landscape.  Tech-enabled whistleblowing systems offer workers means to disclose wrongdoing, receive feedback, use anonymous reporting, and track progress of their disclosure.  Meanwhile, firms can respond quicker, triage whistleblower disclosures more effectively, and aggregate the information needed for investigations. Digital platforms incorporate encryption to safeguard whistleblowers' identities and information, with the aim of mitigating whistleblower reprisal.

Such systems have the potential therefore to make whistleblowing a smoother, more effective and safer process for workers.  But how are these new technologies faring? What are the perspectives of disclosing workers, and recipient managers? Do such systems foster the culture of integrity and openness they promise, encouraging employees to report ethical breaches without fear? This research examines the ways in which technology-enabled whistleblowing cultivates trust, ethical behaviour, and accountability within organizations, and the obstacles therein. This research project focuses on both proprietary and open-source systems that are used to achieve these aims. Get in touch.

Whistleblowing on Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence in Digital Technology Firms

In recent years, many whistleblowing disclosures in digital technology firms have revealed problematic practices including gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence. New forms of silencing practices, including non-disclosure agreements, overt managerial reprisal and aggressive legal threats, are emerging. Meanwhile, the cultural norms within such firms can often support exclusionary practices when it comes to female and BAME workers, as emergent research in organization studies and human resource management scholarship show. 

Speaking up publicly can often be a last resort for workers in such circumstances.  What are people's experiences of going public in this way? What supports are available to counter silencing practices, and what obstacles are in place? What new systems might be needed to ensure effective disclosures of this kind? Get in touch.

Disclosure Lifecycles and Big Tech

Multiple factors influence the effectiveness of whistleblowing disclosures in a specific sector. Effective whistleblowing can involve a journey across multiple phases, as a whistleblower searches for a sufficiently independent and capable recipient (Vandekerckhove & Phillips, 2019). The process can be a protracted one. Specific obstacles and affordances characterize each stage.

To gain an overall understanding of the dynamics, challenges, affordances and success factors of whistleblowing disclosure in big tech, it must be understood as a complex landscape encompassing: 1) the social, cultural and political context of the organizational setting in which a worker is located, 2) organizational cultures and structures influencing or hindering speak-up capacity including employee- and organizational-level factors including gender, job security, the nature of wrongdoing observed, and attitudes toward speaking up, 3) responsiveness of managers and senior executives receiving disclosures, and 4) where internal processes fail, the role of external regulators, media, activist organizations, trade unions and politicians.

At each phase, the specific obstacles and affordances of speaking out will be identified and studied, along with an analysis of how current policies and laws intended to support whistleblowing disclosures in big tech deviate from best practice. Get in touch.

Whistleblowers and Social Media

Whistleblowers often take to social media to challenge the narratives that organizations put forward to detract from wrongdoing, and to devalue the whistleblower. Yet the complex dynamics involved in this have not yet been the focus of research.

In this project, we analyze recently collected empirical data comprising in-depth interviews with whistleblowers and whistleblowing advocates. We examine how disclosures are presented via social media, how the figure of the whistleblower is framed, and the limitations of using social media. Overall, how individual whistleblowing disclosers are perceived affects how they are supported, while the presentation of information is critical in drawing attention to serious wrongdoing.  Get in touch.

** Big tech refers to major digital technology corporations of a sufficient size to enable the exercise of sectoral dominance, and influence over the economy and society of nation-states. Big tech is specifically defined in US law as referring to firms with a market capitalization of more than $600 billion, and a social media platform with more than 50 million monthly active users (Kraus, 2021). Activities include developing and maintaining social media platforms, search engines, operating systems, and e-commerce platforms.