I am pleased to inform you that the treatise on Stakeholder Engagement in European Companies – Company Law Perspectives (Edward Elgar) edited by Hanne Birkmose and Karsten Engsig Sørensen has been published these days (December 2025). I contributed the chapter on “Whistleblowing – stakeholder impact on corporate governance and compliance.”
With a view to corporate governance and compliance whistleblowing can easily be conceptualised as a form of stakeholder engagement as it is aimed at overcoming knowledge problems of the corporate organisation in order to reduce compliance and governance costs. Stakeholder engagement is, however, not inevitably good, but also has a “dark side” which is fed by destructive aims, malintent, or intractable conflicts. Whistleblower regulation has to take account of this “dark” potential in order to avoid unnecessary costs. Furthermore, whistleblower regulation has to be aware of traditional governance and compliance mechanisms in order not to weaken them unintentionally. My contribution sheds light on the trade-offs associated with whistleblower regulation and makes suggestions how to interpret existing EU law on whistleblower protection in order to improve the cost-benefit ratio of whistleblowing.
For more information: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/stakeholder-engagement-in-european-companies-9781035356812.html
