Employees: Whistle-Blowing

Abstract

In a rare departure from civility, following the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan shouted “What the hell is going on?” to executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) (Goodspeed 2011). The prime minister seemed to be speaking for the entire nation, which had grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of reliable information in the days following the disaster, triggered by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which struck the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011. As a result of the widespread perception that TEPCO was withholding the facts concerning the origins and magnitude of the crisis, on October 30, 2011, Japan’s Diet or national parliament granted the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission a mandate to report on the causes of the disaster. The nonpartisan panel concluded that the nuclear crisis was “profoundly man-made” (NAIIC, 9) and could have been prevented by a more transparent corporate and bureaucratic culture.

This case study highlights the moral agents involved in responding to the disaster and the ensuing scandal surrounding TEPCO, not to lay blame but to reflect on the lessons that the case offers for business leaders and their stakeholders. Should TEPCO and its subcontractors have taken more seriously the warnings of various whistle-blowers about the dangers of a nuclear accident? Did the disaster that occurred following the Tohoku earthquake justify the warnings of whistle-blowers like Mitsuhiko Tanaka, or did it demonstrate their irrelevance? Like all managers faced with a catastrophic event—particularly in the field of nuclear energy—the key players at TEPCO may have faced unprecedented levels of stress as they tried to balance the interests of their shareholders against national and international demands for public safety. How well have they done in managing this crisis? The Asian setting of this case offers additional food for thought questioning the moral limits to “saving face”—in light of the universal right to know the truth and to respect the human dignity of all stakeholders, especially the people directly affected by their actions.

“Your loyal dissent can lead your institution in the right direction.” (Stephan Rothlin, Eighteen Rules for Becoming a Top Notch Player, 2004)