EV-0040
People intend to speak up far more than they do
Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., & Viswesvaran, C. (2005). Journal of Business Ethics, 62(3), 277-297 · Source
What this entitles us to say
A meta-analysis of 193 correlations from 26 samples and 18,781 people finding that personal, contextual and wrongdoing characteristics relate more strongly to whistleblowing intent than to actual whistleblowing - and that retaliation is best predicted by contextual variables.
What it found
193 correlations, 26 samples, 18,781 people.
- Predictors related more strongly to whistleblowing intent than to whistleblowing action. The gap between the two is the finding. - Retaliation was best predicted by contextual variables - features of the organization rather than of the person.
Why it matters here
Two things, and both change the product rather than just the module.
For the assessment. This is the clearest warning in the library that self-report on Courage will run high. People are reliably better at intending to speak than at speaking, and a self-assessment captures intent. Courage is therefore a trait where the 360 should carry disproportionate weight, and where the report language should anticipate the gap rather than treat it as a surprise. It is the same shape as the imagined-versus-actual warning in the Discipline file.
For the org tier. If retaliation is predicted mostly by context, then whether courage is survivable in a given company is a company-level property - something an organization can change, and something the program can legitimately claim to work on. That is an unusually direct argument for the org product rather than the individual one: you can train a person to be brave, but if the context punishes it you have only taught them to be punished.
The limits
Whistleblowing about serious wrongdoing is the extreme end of courage - most of what a leadership program addresses is far more ordinary, and the transfer is by analogy. A 2005 analysis of 26 samples, and reporting environments have changed since. The finding that women and tenured employees were more likely to blow the whistle is context about who currently does it, not a basis for expectation about anyone. Verified to abstract level.
What we do not say
that this describes everyday speaking up. Whistleblowing is the extreme case, and applying it to ordinary candour is our analogy - a reasonable one, and ours.