Whistleblowing in the software industry - Data and Results

In today’s world, human lives increasingly depend on software products and, therefore, on the people responsible for its creation and maintenance. If wrongdoings occur within or in relation to software, this can potentially have big implications on individuals, groups of people, or society as a whole. Whistleblowing is considered an effective tool to reveal and stop wrongdoing but is still controversial topic that has been researched sparsely in the software domain. In this study we address this gap and research the current environment for whistleblowing (reporting wrongdoing) in the software industry through a survey conducted with 147 software practitioners. Our study shows that software practitioners have a positive sentiment towards the topic of whistleblowing. However, in practice whistleblowing is obstructed by the difficulty of proving the actual harm and fear of retaliation. Practitioners with more years of experience report more
comfort using readily established mechanisms and procedures in their organization. We found no significant differences with
respect to gender, organization type, and amount of experience at the current organization when analyzing (1) the general views
on whistleblowing, (2) the actual means for reporting software-related wrongdoings, and (3) the supporting and obstructing factors for whistleblowing. The software industry needs to pay urgent attention to improve environment for whistleblowers by providing more external reporting mechanisms, anonymity, and confidentiality. Here we share the questionnaire, raw and analyzed results.