Whistleblowing: Between organizational constraints and practical realities

Abstract

Whistleblowing, as a mechanism designed to prevent and detect financial crimes affecting public funds, is increasingly recommended in both academic and practical literature. The debate has recently been reignited following legislative changes related to the amendment of the Penal Code, which restricts associations' ability to bring legal action in cases of corruption or embezzlement. This article adopts a narrative literature review approach to examine institutional whistleblowing, with particular attention to the role of civil society in reporting such crimes. Drawing on academic, institutional, and critical sources retrieved from the CAIRN and SCOPUS databases, this review synthesizes existing findings on the gap between the formal institutionalization of whistleblowing mechanisms and their actual effectiveness on the ground. The findings show that empirical evidence on how whistleblowing systems function in practice remains scarce relative to the abundance of prescriptive, policy-oriented literature, and that internal and external reporting channels are too often treated as separate rather than complementary mechanisms.