Monday, November 22, 2010
whis
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
nano
Introduction:
The field of Nanotechnology is growing rapidly and some observations on trends in terms of the materials and applications under development are summarized here. Nano technology is intended to provide a ‘snapshot’ of the current status of development in the field. The information has been derived from a number of published sources, in combination with an evaluation and analysis of indicators such as patent activity and commercial product availability.
Nanotechnology used to found the foundation for revolutionary discoveries and advancements in the science technology. It will sound influence the competitiveness of companies in any industrial field.
Nanotechnology, which deals with understanding and control of matter at dimension of roughly 100 nm and below, has a crosssectoral application and an interdisciplinary orientation. At this scale, the biological, chemical, and physical properties of materials differ from the properties of individual atoms and molecules or bulk matter, which enable novel applications.
According to Industry experts at the workshop, within 10 years nanotechnology can be used in all the new products, it used to computer technology for cancer and other disease treatments; renewable energy sources; lightweight multifunctional components in airplanes and cars; agents for environmental remediation; water filters that removes contaminants, salt, and viruses for entire cities. That’s the reason of nanotechnology is viewed as key to future economical growth and advanced countries technically used nanotechnology for its development across the world.
Nanotechnology research and development is directed towards understanding and creating improved devices, materials, and systems that exploit these properties as they are discovered and characterized. There are many applications of nanotechnology such as in the area of agriculture, medicine, information and communication, chemistry and environment, energy, heavy industry and consumer goods. The alleged potential of this technology has garnered the attention of both developed and developing countries across the globe.
Emerging trends in nano technology:
The emergence of nanotechnology in India has witnessed the engagement of a diverse set of players, each with their own agenda and role. Nanotechnology in India is a government led initiative. Industry participation has very recently originated. Nanotechnology barring a few exceptions is largely being ensued at universities as well as research institutes.
Given the enabling nature of nanotechnology and ability to develop along with existing technologies, it has the potential to be utilized as a tool to address key development related challenges in diverse sectors like agriculture, water, energy, environment and health. Enabling conversion and production and energy storage, within renewable energy projects also cited as the area of nanotechnology applications in developed countries.
Nanotechnology might be sought at specific points to improve quality and quantity of wastewater and water treatment process. Enhancement of agricultural productivity has been identified as a critical area of nanotechnology. The development of worldwide hailing nanotechnology as a technology with the potential of satisfy the needs of developing country, as well the developing country India has to promote nanotechnology applications in various sectors like agriculture and energy storage and also have the influence, and impact in the course of future development in the country. Sectors such as energy and environment, health have received greater attention by various technology departments in the government.
Department of Science and Technology (DST), the chief agency engaged in the development of nanotechnology, initiated India’s principal programme, the Nanoscience and Technology Mission (NSTM) in 2007, with an allocation of Rupees 1000 crores for a period of five years. The five-year programme followed the flagship initiative, the Nanoscience and Technology Initiative (NSTI) that was in operation from 2001–06. Close to 200 projects have been undertaken in the NSTI and NSTM since 2002. The DST has also set up ‘Centers of Excellence (CoE) for Nanoscience and Technology’ established under the NSTI to undertake R&D to develop specific applications in a fixed period of time. Aside DST, several other agencies with diverse mandates is also actively engaged in supporting nanotechnology in the national arena. Department of Biotechnology is supporting research in nanotechnology and the life sciences. Industrial R&D for socio-economic benefit has also commissioned R&D in nanotechnology in diverse areas. Science and Engineering Research Council too have aided projects on nanotechnology. Support for these projects has been through its general R&D schemes for basic science and engineering science.
risk
Risk Investment Personality:
Risk is an essential element of the life. There is always the chance that something won’t work out for us and this chance is called risk. There is a risk in anything choose to do in life including the financial life. Risk is used to dealing with it either on a negative basis or a positive basis.
Basically, there are two types of personalities concerning risk. Knowing which one is an important step in managing the investment portfolio properly [Bleichrodt H., 2001].
Risk Taker:
The first type of person is the risk taker. This kind of person who lives for the thrill and loves to take a chance. A person like this is easily involved in the highly risk options or being danger where the prices irregular by the hour. This kind of person takes the greatest risk to lose the money because of the poor spending. This type of person need to check and reconsider the spending options or get a second opinion from the third party [Tversky A., 1992].
Risk Avoider:
The second type of person is the risk avoider. This kind of person who always looks for things to not turn out good, likely to say they can’t trust anybody. For example the story of “Chicken Little” it’s familiar with this type of person. This type of investor is mostly like to miss out on returns and end up with the same money he or she started with. This kind of person need to make sure and check they are allocating a bit too much of money in the periods, money markets or other likely safe and liquid investments. Again a third party can often help you in being objective in the evaluation [Von Winterfeldt D., 1986].
REFERENCES:
1. Bleichrodt H., Management Science, 2001.
2. Tversky A., Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1992.
3. Von Winterfeldt D., Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research, 1986.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
def
Whistle blowing:
To blow the whistle on someone is to alert a third party that person has done, or is doing, something wrong. So, literally, “whistle-blowing” means that one makes a noise to alert others to misconduct. By blowing the whistle on misconduct in an organization, one alerts the organization to the fact that its stakeholders are being wrongfully harmed, or that they are at risk of harm [Adler N. J, 1983].
‘Whistle blowing’ may be defined as the action of an employee in disclosing evidence of wrongdoing including financial irregularity, fraud, serious maladministration arising from the deliberate commission of improper conduct, unethical activities which may be of a dangerous and criminal nature acts or omissions which create a risk to health, safety or the environment, within the organization to which they belong. It does not include mismanagement which arises from poor or weak management rather than malpractice. Whistle blowing is the Act of worker to report criminal acts of employer to proper authorities. In most states does not include notifying the media alone [Arnold D. F., 1991].
The act of making public or raising with regulators and others the misdeeds of employers, such as failure to follow safety legislation and health or the payment of bribes. Whistleblowers are protected by law as long as they follow certain procedures.
Whistle blowing means the abuse or fraud by a company employee. The issue of denunciation made by an employee is primarily an ethical issue, because not always legal and financial control systems, implemented by companies, are able to complaint the moral impact of the decisions and behavior that managers or employees make have in relation to the perspective of corporate social responsibility. Whistle blowing have the types of internal or external. The internal whistle blowing denotes when an employee done irregularities its observed at a higher official with the intention through internal measures; instead the whistle blowing is categorized being external when the internal whistle blowing was not successful or when the employee knows that only a public authority could resolve the deficiency, the message of the employee who is "blow the whistle" may have, and usually it happens, a great impact on the environment in which the company operates with different implications.
As internal control tool, the whistle blowing has at least two aims:
I) to eliminate possible internal disabilities, specially those relating to discipline at job, this is related to the internal whistle blowing;
ii) Building an image of responsible company, ready to assume the errors on the one hand, and especially, the idea of the transmission of transparency and of information’s unethical or inconsistent with the ethical code of the company and immoral.
As new approach accessed by U.S companies, the whistle blowing is discussed in Romania and Western Europe. There are some questions related to the need to attract the attention to conduct fraudulent organizations against characterization of illegal behavior in the company [Barkema H. G., 1997].
Explanation:
Whistle blowing is the act by an employee of informing the public or higher management of unethical behavior by an employer or supervisor. There are frequent newspaper reports of cases in which an employee of a company has gone to the media with allegations of wrong doing by his employer or in which a government employee has disclosed waste or fraud. Whistle blowing is the act of reporting on unethical conduct within an organization to someone outside of the organization in an effort to discourage the organization from continuing the activity. In usual case, the charges are made by an employee or former employee who has been unable to obtain the attention of the organization’s management to the problem. Sometimes, whistle blowing is confined to within the organization where the whistle blower’s supervisor is bypassed in an appeal to higher management. An important issue is to determine the conditions under which engineers are justified in blowing the whistle. It is morally permissible for engineers to engage in whistle blowing when the following conditions are met:
1. The harm that will be done by the product to the public is considerable and serious.
2. Concerns have been made known to the superiors and got no satisfaction from their immediate superiors; all channels have been exhausted within the corporation including the board of directors.
3. The whistle blowers must have documented evidence that would convince the reasonable, impartial observer that his or her view of the situation is correct and the company position is wrong.
4. There must be strong evidence that releasing the information to the public would prevent the projected serious harm.
Clearly, a person engaging in whistle blowing runs considerable risk of being labeled a malcontent or of being charged with disloyalty and possibly being dismissed. The decision to blow the whistle requires great moral courage. Some far sighted companies have established the office of ombudsman or an ethics review committee to head off and solve these problems internally before they reach the whistle blowing stage [Brabeck M., 1984].
Types of whistle blowing:
Internal whistle blowing occurs when an employee goes over head of an immediate supervisor to report a problem to a higher level management. Or, all levels of management are bypassed, and the employee goes directly to the employee goes directly to the president of the company or the board of directors. It is kept within the organization. External whistle blowing occurs when the employee goes outside the company and reports wrongdoing to newspapers or law-enforcement authorities. Either type of whistle blowing is likely to be perceived as disloyalty. However, keeping it within the company is often seen as less serious than going outside of the company. Anonymous whistle blowing occurs when the employee who is blowing the whistle refuses to divulge his name when making accusations. These accusations might take the form of anonymous memos to upper management or anonymous phone calls to the police. The employee might also talk to the news media but refuses to let her name be used as the source of the allegations. Acknowledged whistle blowing, on the other hand, occurs when the employee puts his name behind the accusations and is willing to whistle blowing the security brought on by his accusations. Whistle blowing can be very bad from a corporation’s point of view because it can lead to distrust, disharmony, and an inability of employees to work together [Black B., 2001].
REFERENCES:
1. Adler, N. J., Journal of International Business Studies, 1983.
2. Arnold, D. F., Journal of Practice & Theory, 1991.
3. Barkema, H. G., Journal of International Business Studies, 1997.
4. Brabeck, M., Journal of Research in Personality, 1984.
5. Black, B., Employee Relations, 2001.
6. Birnberg, J. G., Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1988.
7. Brody, R. G., American Business Review, 1998.
8. Chanchani, S., Journal of Accounting Literature, 1999.
9. Chow, C. W., Journal of Management Accounting Research, 2000.
10. Chow, C. W., Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1999.
11. Cohen, J, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavior Science, 1988.
12. Cohen, J. R, Journal of Business Ethics, 1997.
13. Cohen, J. R., Accounting Horizons, 1988.
def
Whistle blowing:
To blow the whistle on someone is to alert a third party that person has done, or is doing, something wrong. So, literally, “whistle-blowing” means that one makes a noise to alert others to misconduct. By blowing the whistle on misconduct in an organization, one alerts the organization to the fact that its stakeholders are being wrongfully harmed, or that they are at risk of harm.
‘Whistle blowing’ may be defined as the action of an employee in disclosing evidence of wrongdoing including financial irregularity, fraud, serious maladministration arising from the deliberate commission of improper conduct, unethical activities which may be of a dangerous and criminal nature acts or omissions which create a risk to health, safety or the environment, within the organization to which they belong. It does not include mismanagement which arises from poor or weak management rather than malpractice. Whistle blowing is the Act of worker to report criminal acts of employer to proper authorities. In most states does not include notifying the media alone.
The act of making public or raising with regulators and others the misdeeds of employers, such as failure to follow safety legislation and health or the payment of bribes. Whistleblowers are protected by law as long as they follow certain procedures.
Whistle blowing means the abuse or fraud by a company employee. The issue of denunciation made by an employee is primarily an ethical issue, because not always legal and financial control systems, implemented by companies, are able to complaint the moral impact of the decisions and behavior that managers or employees make have in relation to the perspective of corporate social responsibility. Whistle blowing have the types of internal or external. The internal whistle blowing when an employee denunciate irregularities observed at a higher employee with the intention to remedy the situation through internal measures; instead the whistle blowing is categorized being external when the internal whistle blowing was not successful or when the employee knows that only a public authority could resolve the deficiency, in this second case, the message of the employee who is "blow the whistle" may have, and usually it happens, a great impact on the environment in which the company operates with different implications.
As internal control tool, the whistle blowing has at least two aims:
I) to eliminate possible internal irregularities, particularly those relating to discipline at work, this is related to the internal whistle blowing;
ii) Building an image of responsible company, ready to assume the errors on the one hand, and especially, the idea of the transmission of transparency and of information’s unethical or inconsistent with the ethical code of the company and immoral.
As new approach accessed by U.S companies, the whistle blowing is discussed in Romania and Western Europe. There are some questions related to the need to attract attention to conduct fraudulent companies versus characterization of a denunciator behavior in the company.
Explanation:
Whistle blowing is the act by an employee of informing the public or higher management of unethical behavior by an employer or supervisor. There are frequent newspaper reports of cases in which an employee of a company has gone to the media with allegations of wrong doing by his employer or in which a government employee has disclosed waste or fraud. Whistle blowing is the act of reporting on unethical conduct within an organization to someone outside of the organization in an effort to discourage the organization from continuing the activity. In usual case, the charges are made by an employee or former employee who has been unable to obtain the attention of the organization’s management to the problem. Sometimes, whistle blowing is confined to within the organization where the whistle blower’s supervisor is bypassed in an appeal to higher management. An important issue is to determine the conditions under which engineers are justified in blowing the whistle. It is morally permissible for engineers to engage in whistle blowing when the following conditions are met:
1. The harm that will be done by the product to the public is considerable and serious.
2. Concerns have been made known to the superiors and got no satisfaction from their immediate superiors; all channels have been exhausted within the corporation including the board of directors.
3. The whistle blowers must have documented evidence that would convince the reasonable, impartial observer that his or her view of the situation is correct and the company position is wrong.
4. There must be strong evidence that releasing the information to the public would prevent the projected serious harm.
Clearly, a person engaging in whistle blowing runs considerable risk of being labeled a malcontent or of being charged with disloyalty and possibly being dismissed. The decision to blow the whistle requires great moral courage. Some far sighted companies have established the office of ombudsman or an ethics review committee to head off and solve these problems internally before they reach the whistle blowing stage.
Types of whistle blowing:
Internal whistle blowing occurs when an employee goes over head of an immediate supervisor to report a problem to a higher level management. Or, all levels of management are bypassed, and the employee goes directly to the employee goes directly to the president of the company or the board of directors. It is kept within the organization. External whistle blowing occurs when the employee goes outside the company and reports wrongdoing to newspapers or law-enforcement authorities. Either type of whistle blowing is likely to be perceived as disloyalty. However, keeping it within the company is often seen as less serious than going outside of the company. Anonymous whistle blowing occurs when the employee who is blowing the whistle refuses to divulge his name when making accusations. These accusations might take the form of anonymous memos to upper management or anonymous phone calls to the police. The employee might also talk to the news media but refuses to let her name be used as the source of the allegations. Acknowledged whistle blowing, on the other hand, occurs when the employee puts his name behind the accusations and is willing to whistle blowing the security brought on by his accusations. Whistle blowing can be very bad from a corporation’s point of view because it can lead to distrust, disharmony, and an inability of employees to work together.
whis
Whistle blowing:
Introduction:
No one can answer whether whistle blowing is good or bad. The problem is that the good and bad effects are in equal measures. A whistle blower draws the attention of people to any wrong thing doing in the office environment or society and just about anywhere. Sometimes this aspects cause more problems than good [Hannan EL, 1989].
In an office environment whistle blowing is considered as wrong. If there is an issue that has to be addressed, then it has to be focused through the right authorities like an ombudsperson. If a whistle blower continues to talk to people about the wrong thing doing of somebody, then the whole office environment gets affected. Even in society this could lead to common people taking some extreme measures to control the wrong thing doing [Bolsin SN, 1998].
Also, the claims of whistle blowers are not always good and genuine and sometimes a person may be doing it for their selfish reasons. However, a lot of people get dragged into it unnecessarily. Especially in medical field, whistle blowing makes severe problems to that the field and the field has to deal with law suits and false claims [Salcido R, 2003].
In a wide sense, whistle blowing is alerting relevant persons to some moral or legal corruption, where “relevant persons” are those in a position to act in response, if only by registering protest. In this sense, an individual need not be a member of an organization in order to blow the whistle on it. Journalists, politicians, and consumer groups may learn of corruption in organizations they do not work for and blow the whistle on them by publishing articles or informing regulatory agencies. Our main interest in this section, however, will be in whistle blowing by present and former employees [Sibbald B, 1998].
In a narrower sense, whistle blowing is sometimes defined as making public accusations about misconduct by one’s organization. Yet not all whistle blowing involves public statements outside the organization. Sometimes the whistle is blown within organization, whether in bypassing approved organizational channels or by going against the desires of one’s supervisor or others [Faunce TA, 1998].
Whistle blowing has not an official meaning, probably because there is not a shared and common knowledge on the matter so that, in each country, jurists and economists have different views of the problem and different perspectives about its application. The word whistleblower comes from the practices of English Bobbies whistle blowing when noticing somebody committing a crime, making law enforcers, and public in general, and alert. This is the origin of the word and for this reason it refers to an activity that must be intended in a positive path and not as a sort of betrayal and disloyalty toward the organization or the company which whistleblowers belong to. The expression “blowing the whistle” refers also to the action of a football referee when he stops the match because a foul has been committed [Faunce T, 2004].
However in the last years things have changed both from a cultural and a legal point of view, Whistle blowing issues concern each employee or person and all the organizations; every company and anybody in public can take risk that something goes wrong: a poisoned food, polluted Water or air, some unsafe means of transport or an incompetent doctor are just a few examples of the risks that can rise from the daily process of any organizations. Who are the first to discover these hazardous situations, besides who usually work in or for the organizations? The problem is that the employees, who are in the best position to reduce or remove the risks, are also the ones who can lose most of things from whistle blowing. To solve this problem the first step should be taken by the organizations which must establish the ideal conditions for the employees, letting them believe that raising personal concerns about possible wrongdoing inside the company is safe and acceptable, without the risk of victimization, lost of the job or any other possible damage to the career. When this does not happen, the workers will face a conflict between personal interest and a public’s one: while seeing their own career harmed, passengers, they won’t consider a priority a possible damage to consumers, shareholders, patients, and everyone else who can have a relationship with the organization or company [Goldie J, 2003].
It’s the important thing to consider the faith that public opinion involved toward the organizations that is why the recent scandals had a terrific effect on fiduciary markets. The public needs to receive a transparent communication, without any breakdown, particularly in the accounting field. The contrast with the culture, present law and practice across the world is clear and, unfortunately, this climate strongly discourages common and respectable people from questioning about wrongdoing they come across. Employees follow only a short-term personal interest instead of the long-term community’s one. The problem is enlarged due to the fact that this culture even marks the behavior of these employees in their life outside the company, for example keeping them quiet when noticing a crime [Hafferty, 1994].
The person incurring in a wrongdoing on his working place has four different choices: he can stay silent, he can blow the whistle externally or he can disclose the information anonymously, he can blow the whistle internally [Wolf TM, 1989].
Whistle blowing grows his value as thanks to the variety of options available for the employee, because he should be free to choose the most suitable path of disclosing according to the circumstances. Whistle blowing is a positive process because it doesn’t regard personal
grievances but it refers to the disclosure of wrongdoing which damages or threatens other
people besides the employee. Therefore the real aim of whistle blowing is not a personal revenge but it is to make different possible addressees aware about some harm or risk, so that it could be reduced or removed [Hundert EM, 1996].
A whistle blower lawsuit can cost a company millions of dollars and sometimes it may have been spent unnecessarily. By the time the company tries to prove its innocence or justify the case, they would have already spent a lot of dollars dealing with the case. Only the lawyers get to make the money in the bargain [Rennie SC, 2002].
Example cases:Case 1:
In March 2003, the U.K. was embroiled in a controversy regarding a civil servant declaring to a journalist that the PM's Office had 'glamorized' information in a dossier which would be later used as a reason to go to war with Iraq. Dr. David Kelly, a government expert on weapons of mass destruction, particularly in Iraq, admitted to a BBC reporter that he felt that PM Tony Blair's advisors had exaggerated the threat Iraq posed to the western world in a dossier that had been presented by the security services [McCarrick PM, 1995].
Kelly alleged that the document was 'doctored' to serve the government's political end. When the story broke, it caused great controversy, and the government carried out an investigation into who was behind these allegations. Once Dr. Kelly was found to be the source of the comments, his name was leaked to the press and certain elements from the civil service set out to destroy his professional reputation. Being in the eye of the political storm was too much pressure and tension for the doctor, after two weeks the story first broke, he committed suicide. The after this shock affair has been severely felt in the U.K., with the government being heavily criticized over its presentation, but also having a hand in a whistle-blower taking his own life [Beauchamp TL, 1994].
Case 2:
In January 2004, the RCMP launched a full criminal investigation against former privacy commissioner George Radwanski and some of his officials. Radwanski resigned his job in June 2003 for hospitality allegations, including claims that he and his officials scam the money almost 500,000 dollars in travel expenses and hospitality departments, during a two year period. Other concerns that were raised revolved around two improper advances of 15,000 dollars and claim that Radwanski's staff scams the amount of 100,000 dollars worth of vacation leave that they already taken that amount. It was widely reported at the time that Radwanski threatened to end the career of the "rat who squealed to MPs" if he ever found out who it was. This case and the threats made to the whistle blower increased pressure on the government to do more to protect those who disclose information for the goodness of public [Ross WD, 1988].
Case 3:
New York utility National Fuel Gas sacked corporate lawyer Curtis Lee after he alleged NFG's chief executive and president had ordered him to increase their remuneration by backdating stock options on forms submitted to the SEC. NFG then successfully sued Lee for the return of documents that might have provided proof and in 2002 persuaded a local court that he was in contempt of court, prohibiting him from repeating the allegations and scam. The court notoriously ruled that he undergo psychiatric treatment. The SEC investigation was frustrated by the death of the chair of NFG's compensation committee [Kant I, 1964].
Whistle blowing in BRIC nations:
The executive brief of BRIC is Brazil, Russia, India, and China forms the so-called BRIC countries.
The BRIC countries are also realizing their unique potential and collective standing in the global marketplace. In 2008, meeting of the foreign ministers of the BRIC countries in Yekaterinburg, Russia, was their first formal independent meeting and signals the four countries’ potential trade and political association. In a joint statement, the BRIC countries urged the creation of "a more democratic international system founded on the rule of law and multilateral diplomacy.” Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said “We are changing the way of the world order is organized,” in the meeting. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “new quality cooperation” in the quadripartite format in the meeting. India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said BRIC as a “unique combination of mutually complementary economies”. It was stressed by China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who said that BRIC as a "our cooperation will not be aimed against other nations.” However, for international business and trade purposes, the four countries are totally different. For example, Goldman Sachs predicts that Brazil and Russia will become top in the world economy as suppliers of raw materials. India and China will be prosperous global suppliers of manufactured products and services [Gillon R, 1995].
Economic and Population Changes in BRIC nations
Brazil:
In 1994, the real plan of Brazil has out of recession; growth has been sluggish at around 3% yearly compared with the other BRIC countries. Internal and external constraints have challenged more rapid growth for income. Current population growth rates are similar to that in the U.S. Infant mortality rates have also been improving in the last decade [Culver CM, 1985].
Russia:
After the economic collapse of 1998, Russia has experienced strong growth of late. A devalued ruble and relatively high oil prices helps the Russian economy growth. On other side, Russia is experienced in declining fertility rates and resulting in declining population of about yearly percentage of 0.5. The decline in the population has implications for both labor force and the productive capacity of the country [Clements CD, 1983].
India:
Increasing service exports and foreign investment have been India’s main vehicles of growth in
the economy. This strengthening of the economy is a function of a stronger focus on literacy and education. These factors help to explain the rising GDP growth. But, the population growth may be an issue in the future. The country is growing its population at about 1.6% annually, now it’s having a population around 1.1 billion [Beauchamp TL, 1995].
China:
Comprehensive reforms in the financial and corporate sectors have facilitated China’s superb
economic growth rates. In addition, an increasing focus on industrial exports and monetary transparency have led to increased foreign investment and also serve as drivers of China’s economic expansion. China’s population exceeds 1.3 billion, making it the most populous country in the world but growth rates are decreasing due to China’s one child policy [Spiro H, 1992].
Whistle blowing policy in BRIC nations:
Whistle blowing policy:
Generally whistle blowing Policy is followed by some other nations. It is intended to assist individual employees to disclose internally and at a high level, information which the individual believes shows malpractice or impropriety. It is not designed to further any personal disputes, business decisions or question financial taken by government of that nation and should it be used to reconsider any staff matters which have been addressed under the grievances procedure already in place. Whistle blowing matters may include but are not confined to:
• Breach of legal or regulatory requirements
• Criminal offences, breach of civil law and miscarriage of justice
• Malpractice, impropriety or fraud relating to internal controls, accounting, auditing and financial matters
• Endangerment of the health and safety of an individual
• Damage caused to the environment
• Violation of the rules and regulations of the Company.
• Improper conduct or unethical behavior likely to prejudice the standing of organization.
• Deliberate concealment of any of the above [Schneider CE, 1994].
Whistle blowing in Brazil:
In Brazil, order to enhance good governance and transparency, the Bank has a Whistle-blowing and Complaints Handling Policy, whose aim is to provide an avenue for raising concerns related to, Fraud or Corruption any other Misconduct by third parties, Bank Personnel, and development partners. Those who disclose information relating to corruption, fraud and any other misconduct will be protected from Retaliation.
The Office of the Auditor General is designated as the Advocate for whistle-blowers and is authorized to implement the Policy. The Integrity and Anti-Corruption Division in the Office of the Auditor General is responsible for undertaking investigations under the Policy [Kassirer JP, 1995].
Whistle blowing in Russia:
Russia has had a difficult history with corruption. Whistle blowing was at times mandated by the state, and it is not popular today because of distrust on the part of the population towards the state which was in the role of oppressor for the 70-plus years of the Soviet rule, as well as prior to that during the Szarist period. Hence, there is much resistance towards whistle blowing on the part of Russians. However, spurred by European lawyers, a new form of whistle blowing has emerged in modern-day Russia - environmental whistle blowing. This paper will examine the impact of international lawyers and law on altering Russian national resistance towards whistle blowing [Brody D, 1980].
Whistle blowing in India:
At present India does not have any law to protect whistleblowers, though a bill for the purpose is in the pipeline. The issue of protection for whistleblowers caught the attention of the entire nation when National Highways Authority of India engineer as a government official Satyendra Dubey was killed after he wrote a letter to the office then PM A.B Vajpayee detailing corruption in the construction of highways.
In the letter, he had asked specifically that his identity be kept secret. Instead, the letter was forwarded to various concerned departments without masking Dubey’s identity. Dubey’s murder led to a public outcry at the failure to protect him. As a result, in April 2004, the Supreme Court pressed the government into issuing an office order, the Public Interest Disclosures and Protection of Informers Resolution, 2004 designating CVC as the nodal agency to handle complaints on corruption
However, over a year later, Manjunath Shanmugham, a sales manager of the IOC was murdered on Nov 19, 2005 for exposing the racket of adulteration of petrol and the mafia behind it. This brought renewed focus on need for a law to protect whistleblowers — but five years after the last episode; there is still no law in India [DiMatteo MR, 2007].
Whistle blowing in China:
In china responsible departments for whistle blowing is Auditing and Risk Control Department of Messer China, Human Resource Department of Messer China. They handling the principle of whistle blowing, the principles are
1. The responsible department will organize an investigation timely on receiving a report on misconduct;
2. The investigation will attempt to describe the facts clearly and to provide effective clues or evidence.
3. During the investigation process, all information has to be kept confidential to avoid obstruction of the investigation and retaliation to the whistleblower caused by a disclosure.
4. No body has the right to intervene or disclose any information related to the reported for misconduct without proper report and authorization.
We encourage whistle blowing for country’s development and also encourage the whistleblower to disclose his/her name and valid contact information. The responsible department will disclose the investigation result to the whistleblower [Pendleton D, 1983].
Professional Ethics in BRIC nations:
Brazil:
In Brazil, the Brazilian society is significant with income and the concentration of wealth in a small part of the population. Brazil is among ten countries of the world with most unequal distribution of wealth. Brazil has the rich natural resources and it’s going to the succession of booms. It discovers the new sources of wealth from earlier cycles of gold, rubber, coffee, and sugarcane to more current and diverse exports of oil & fuels, soybeans, food & beverages, chemicals, iron ore, aeronautics and transportation materials. Each of these booms created with successive powerful waves, ultra rich dynasties, which controlled and may still control a disproportionate share of the country’s wealth. The Brazilian business is the largest social environment of this country. Such elements as flexibility and loyalty, jeitinho and personal relationships exist side by side with Western cultural, manifested in the use of formal ethics programs and codes of ethics [Grundstein-Amado R, 1995].
Russia
In Russia, the Russian business ethics have significant differences between perceptions of Russian and Western managers and several area employees. Russians are likely particularistic than universalistic in solving the ethical problems. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars defined ‘universalism’ as a belief that have the rules and laws for equally and regardless of the particular circumstances, which contrasts with particular assumption that laws can be corrected more loosely based on specifics of the nature of relationships and a situation with involved people. Thus, Russian managers would be applying for situational decision when solving the ethical problems. Russians would be likely to consider the exchange of the favors with their informal network of business relations as part of the standard and ethical business practices. It is important to realize in this respect, Russians seems to be likely common with the Chinese [Smith DH, 1996].
India
In India, the differences in ethical perspective between the India and US for the diverse cultural perspectives, the culture of US is dominantly individualistic where as the culture of Indian is collectivistic which in turn of greater emphasis on the position of individual decision in ethical practices in US, where as India places greater quick on social responsibility. This is reflecting the move from the focus on shareholders to focusing on the stakeholders and placing emphasis on situational sustainability. The Indian rich culture, immersed in religion and spirituality, is focused on ethical decision making, which sets it apart from the western analytical approach to ethical decision making based on it standards. The factors like education, culture, and gender play a significant role in shaping the moral perspectives and ethical values. Although India is a liberal democratic country, the business environment is highly beaurocratic and non-participatory. The government often acts as a gate keeper rather than an enabler of business transactions [Pellegrino ED, 1995].
China
In China, the ethical practices in Chinese business organizations are based on the cultural values as collectivism, paternalism, and guanxi. In their ethical decision making, the Chinese employees and managers are more likely to use situational and particularistic than universalistic criteria. The Ethical behavior is formed by the significance on informal agreements as against to formal contracts, and by a significant role of the reciprocal exchanges of favors and the informal networks of support. Furthermore, the expectation of Chinese business organizations will rarely have formal ethical codes. In addition, business ethics is influenced by the significance on personal assessment of leaders’ benevolence and individual’s trustworthiness [Royce J, 1971].
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