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Emotion is a human existence's alluring facet which articulates delight, adore, love, aggravation, despair, detestation and rage as well. Generally, human beings have hardly any complexity in assessing if someone is articulating cheerfulness, revelation, dread or annoyance just by gazing at an individual's face. Emotions are exclusive to each individual and are generally classified as A) Positive emotions which are filled with yearning for delight, zeal, amusement and unity and as B) Negative emotions are filled with regret, the dread of the unknown and sorrow (Abdullah et al., 2013; Goleman, 2005; Goleman, 2007).
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new guidance calling on public companies to be more forthcoming when disclosing nature and scope of cybersecurity breaches. The statement also warns that corporate insiders must not trade shares when they have information about cybersecurity issues that is not public yet. This requires that organizations create cultures where employees develop the emotional acumen to act ethically and honestly when it comes to coming forward about wrongdoing or whistleblowing.
Developing actionable dexterity in social and emotional intelligence is a critical aspect of developing a high level of emotional and business acumen (Goleman, 2007) The impact of emotional acumen with respect to whistleblowing would be interesting to explore as the emotional acumen is the sharpness or readiness of an individual to perceive a situation. Sharper the ability of a person to perceive a given situation, better will he/she be able to act accordingly, which ultimately means a person becoming smarter about their feelings in a way that is more emotionally and socially intelligent (Rathbone, 2012; Goleman, 2005; Goleman, 2007) Since, the process of whistleblowing involves the ability to thoroughly understand, analyse, decide and accordingly act to any kind of situation which demands justice hence, emotional acumen might play a major role (Burke & Cooper, 2013).
Miceli and Near (1992) defined whistleblowing as the disclosure by current or former members of an organization of immoral, illegitimate or illegal practices under the control of the employers, to organizations or persons that might be able to effect action. Some authors have explained whistleblowing is an ethical issue of extreme significance as it protects against the harmful economic, environmental and social impact of multi-national companies entering worldwide markets (Weiss, 2006; Hoffman and Mcnulty, 2010; Courtemanche, 1988). According to Stewart (1996), whistleblowing is considered as a primary instrument for encouraging individual accountability and organizational answerability. Whistleblowing as a phenomenon looks mystifying due to its complex procedure involving personal and organizational factors. Therefore, whistleblowing research is essential for several reasons. The first is because unethical behavior is a continuing problem in a variety of organizations. When individuals. Whistleblowing can have serious consequences, both for the individual whistleblower and for the organization. Whistleblowers often suffer retaliation (Wilde, 2013).