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The Whistleblower

The Whistleblower

A Japanese MNC has a whistle blowing policy under which employees can report incidents to prevent the occurrence of any corporate wrongdoing, in accordance with the article 301 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Employees can also prefer to stay anonymous, while reporting any violation or possible violation e.g. wrong accounting or audit practices, fraudulent sales or transactions etc.
An employee can report their concerns directly to the board of corporate auditors in Japan. Since the people sitting in Japan are not aware of exact conditions in the native country they forward such complaints back to the country MD to investigate and appraise them about the facts.
But rather than taking corrective actions on those highlighted violations, the local management targets employees whom they perceive who could have made such complaints.
You have come across a possible violation, would you still report?
What improvements would you suggest to avoid scapegoating?
Photo Adaptation/ Flickr/stevendepolo
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Twinkar
Twinkar
More awareness could be spread regarding who in a position of authority could be approached for investigations into the matter. If the employees are taking a step forward to bring to the spotlight about the practices. The people in charge should also take a step towards conducting the required investigations. Meeting halfway with the employees and together taking corrective action This would help support the employees voice.

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• We are hardwired to make these mistakes • Few biases are simply evolutionary • These errors affect all of us including the bright ones • Experience is just not enough to overcome • but expertise is required to recognize and overcome

Few of biases as below · Anchoring - When an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information during decision making · Fixed pie - When we assume that our interests conflict with the other party's interests and we play adversarial · Framing - When we decide on our options differently when the options are presented with positive or negative connotations · Vividness – When we pay attention to strong features at the expense of less, that could be more impactful · Over confidence – When our subjective confidence is greater than the objective accuracy · Escalation – When initial decision is followed up with an irrational decision to justify the initial decision

Few ways to mitigate these biases are · Learn to recognize the bias · Use slow, effortful and logical thinking (System 2) · Avoid fast, automatic and effortless thinking (System 1) · Avoid negotiations which are thrust upon when not ready · Learn through use of stories, examples, exercises · Bring an outsider perspective