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Case Study Of Toshiba's Whistleblowing System

Decent Essays

Failure Whistleblower System
Even though Toshiba had implemented a whistleblower system according to the governance code, the effect and function about this system was questionable during the daily operation, and we do think that it is more important to get the effective implementation in practice.
The reason of Toshiba’s whistleblower system lost effectiveness is that the board of director (including the audit committee), board of supervisor, manger levels, internal audit department and financial department all keep silent when problems happen. The people in the company were lack of oversight role that they should play. In Japan, the whistleblower system of many companies were only established but did not inject soul.
Five Steps to Recover …show more content…

Firstly, managers should be required to investigate all allegations promptly and thoroughly. One of the important reasons for investigating allegations promptly is that If delayed action or inaction occurs in a case where a policy requires that any complaint received must be acknowledged or investigated within a certain number of hours, cynicism could arise about the seriousness of the organization’s ethics policy. And second, managers should also be required to report the origins and results of the investigation to an oversight body such as human resources or upper management and the audit committee.

Assessing the Organization’s Internal Whistleblowing System is the last step to build a whistleblower system. Find out employees’ opinions about the organization’s culture and specifically seek employee views on the organization’s commitment to ethics and values. Four Questions should be taken into considered when assess the internal whistleblowing system: a) Does the organization have a code of conduct? b) Are employees aware of it? c) Does the company train on what is an ethical breach? d) Have there been recent breaches and how were they addressed?
Besides, there are some potential survey questions, such as: “Do you believe unethical issues are tolerated here? “and “Do you know how to report an illegal or unethical

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