Through the combined efforts of subject matter experts, investigative journalism and, sometimes law enforcement, issues such as bad ethics, criminal acts, lessons-learned and worst-case scenarios have been consistently reported over the years. Many are reported after the incident with investigations completed while others have been fortunately reported proactively so the issue in question could be resolved before an injury, exposure or even death.
Some of these situations are more well-known than others such as the Bhopal disaster, the pesticide leak that exposed over 500,000 to methyl isocyanide (Banjeree, 2013) and NASA’s Challenger and Columbia spaceflight disasters; when viewed in conjunction with other disasters such as Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island, the basis for the proactive hazard identification, communication, leading indicators and continual improvement forming high reliability theory and operations was born (Boin & Schulman, 2008). With this, for high reliability operations to be realized and sustainable, mechanisms are needed for reporting hazards, persisting unsafe conditions or practices and situations requiring resolutions or even justice. This created the role of the need for whistleblowers, those with the ability and will to report these types of situations.