<story><title>When Engineers Become Whistleblowers</title><url>https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engineers-become-whistleblowers/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VengefulCynic</author><text>Within the financial services industry, there are significant monetary incentives for whistleblowers to come forward with evidence of malfeasance. The SEC offers something like 0.5% of recovered funds, which can amount to millions of dollars... which is important because even with the protections afforded by Dodd-Frank, it&amp;#x27;s a very real possibility that you won&amp;#x27;t work in the finance industry again.&lt;p&gt;By contrast, while it might not be a permanent career-ending event for an engineer to blow the whistle at an engineering company, it holds the significant risk of ending the engineer&amp;#x27;s career at that company. Not to mention lawsuits and the cost of finding a new job. Most every engineer I know wants to do the right thing... but those are powerful headwinds. So on the mere suspicion of misfeasance or malfeasance, the prospect of losing a job and being embroiled in a lawsuit serves as a powerful deterrent.&lt;p&gt;People will point out (correctly) that adding financial incentives will inevitably lead to a combination of malicious compliance and misreporting, so there&amp;#x27;s a line that has to be drawn. Also, protections in private sector are either toothless or come with expensive oversight, but it&amp;#x27;s clear that if the government wants more whistleblowing from the ranks of normal engineers (and that&amp;#x27;s a big &amp;#x27;if&amp;#x27;), they probably need to do something more to cause it to happen besides just keep asking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mrep</author><text>It actually ranges from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million [0].  In the linked case, 2 whistle blowers shared a 50 million dollar reward.  Now that is an incentive.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;press-release&amp;#x2F;2018-44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;press-release&amp;#x2F;2018-44&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>When Engineers Become Whistleblowers</title><url>https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engineers-become-whistleblowers/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VengefulCynic</author><text>Within the financial services industry, there are significant monetary incentives for whistleblowers to come forward with evidence of malfeasance. The SEC offers something like 0.5% of recovered funds, which can amount to millions of dollars... which is important because even with the protections afforded by Dodd-Frank, it&amp;#x27;s a very real possibility that you won&amp;#x27;t work in the finance industry again.&lt;p&gt;By contrast, while it might not be a permanent career-ending event for an engineer to blow the whistle at an engineering company, it holds the significant risk of ending the engineer&amp;#x27;s career at that company. Not to mention lawsuits and the cost of finding a new job. Most every engineer I know wants to do the right thing... but those are powerful headwinds. So on the mere suspicion of misfeasance or malfeasance, the prospect of losing a job and being embroiled in a lawsuit serves as a powerful deterrent.&lt;p&gt;People will point out (correctly) that adding financial incentives will inevitably lead to a combination of malicious compliance and misreporting, so there&amp;#x27;s a line that has to be drawn. Also, protections in private sector are either toothless or come with expensive oversight, but it&amp;#x27;s clear that if the government wants more whistleblowing from the ranks of normal engineers (and that&amp;#x27;s a big &amp;#x27;if&amp;#x27;), they probably need to do something more to cause it to happen besides just keep asking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>emilecantin</author><text>This is the point of having Professional Engineers and a very strict deontological code; it tips the incentive scale towards doing the right thing.&lt;p&gt;When asked to do something unethical, the P.E. has a choice: they can refuse, in which case they might lose their job; or they can comply, in which case they might lose their license altogether (and thus their job).</text></comment>