Whistle-blowers, the real heroes in corporate Japan

TOKYO: People associate sordid images with anyone who rats on their company, but it is about time society began appreciating the significance of such an act in its rightful context.

Corporate corruption has been so rampant in the financial industry that we have become immune to anything dirty being done by financial institutions such as banks and securities companies.

But it is a different story when the manufacturing industry, whose image has always been associated with diligence and honest toil, seems to have succumbed to the same disease.

We are afraid this must be the case. Snow Brand Milk Products Co. caused a food poisoning epidemic. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. lied about its recalled cars. And Bridgestone Corp. came under fire for fatal car accidents caused by tires made by its U.S. subsidiary.

This series of scandals makes it impossible to shrug them off as just a few aberrations. The time has come for Japanese industry as a whole to regard them as a shared problem and do everything to prevent any recurrence.

At many companies, the top leadership is not informed of what is really going on.

That was the case with the Snow Brand president, who was visibly rattled when he was informed of the truth for the first time during a news conference. Other company presidents must have seen themselves in him.

Tatsumi Tanaka, a crisis management expert, cites the following four factors that can block vital information from reaching the top leadership.

(1) The common misconception that the top executive must know everything without being told;

(2) The fear of being misunderstood as a dissenter for breaking bad news;

(3) The company man's instinct to want to solve the problem before it reaches the boss; and

(4) The protectiveness or consideration of loyal aides toward their boss.

In addition, it is certainly not uncommon for people to try to save their own skins or gain time by withholding information from their superiors.

Unless companies can face these facts squarely and are prepared to deal with them any time, they will not be able to act properly and promptly in an emergency.

And it is no good to rely only on a system in which information passes through many people's hands, from rank-and- file workers to the top leadership. What is needed is a completely open or transparent flow of information, including negative information.

To prevent the same mistake, Mitsubishi Motors has set up an advisory committee to keep an eye on product quality. The committee will have third-party members, including a former Supreme Court justice, who will gather information widely and relay it to the top executives.

Objective advice is of vital importance, especially in times of crisis. In that sense, it is most effective to appoint outside people as executives and auditors. And from the standpoint of keeping an eye on corporate management, labor unions, too, have an important role to play.

Top executives should be the first in their companies to disclose any information concerning consumer safety. To deliberately ignore, hide or delay the disclosure of such information can only aggravate the situation.

Companies also need to rethink their management policies of overstressing sales and market share figures. Public relations and quality control departments may hardly contribute to the bottom line, but staffing them with competent people is the way to go for efficient crisis management.

The Mitsubishi Motors scandal was reportedly brought to light by an in-house whistle blower.

When one would rather be an honest citizen than a dishonest corporate worker, blowing the whistle on the company is not a dishonorable thing at all.

Since the collapse of the asset-inflated economy, consumers and shareholders have come to scrutinize corporate doings more severely.

Should any company try to cheat or lie to them, and the longer it keeps at it, the more damage it can inflict upon itself when everything becomes exposed.

We urge businesses to build a system or foster a corporate climate that appreciates negative information as a blessing in disguise, rather than denounce anyone who dares to point the finger at the company.

-- Asahi Shimbun