 Welcome back to corporate governance and today we are going to be talking about whistle blowing. We have been talking about it, its various implications, its various dimensions, its various consequences. Today, we are going to be talking about the organizational response to whistle blowing and when we talk about organizational response, then it is not only the formal response, it is also the informal response. It is how that whistle blowing incident or the whistle blower is affecting different stakeholders within and outside a particular organization. Now, when we talk about that, then internal whistle blowers are more likely to be dismissed immediately in order to silence or intimidate the employee. So, I was also mentioning in our last session that as a process of victimization or retaliation, many employees are just terminated from their job based upon some botched up story or based upon some cooked incident and they try to discredit the whistle blower so that whatever he or she is saying that would be taken as a revengeful act or a revengeful act or something which the person has undertaken just to hide or mellow down his or her own mistakes or wrongdoing. Internal reporting is viewed as a challenge to the authority structure in the organization. So, usually what we see in any organization is that whenever there is some internal reporting, there is some peer reporting or there is whistle blowing, that is considered as a challenge to the authority structure in the organization and the whole organization gets together to undermine and stop the whistle blower and that becomes a very very grave situation and one must be very careful of that. And now, when you look at the external whistle blowers, they receive worse retaliation than the internal whistle blowers because they are outside the organization and maybe discrediting them for the organization is easier. Most of the whistle blowers experience some form of retaliation and this is not without consequence for the whistle blower and the organization. So, just like I was mentioning that there are consequences and these consequences are usually adverse for the whistle blower or the organization and also for the different stakeholders and that is why many a times whistle blowing is not appreciated within an organization be it internal or external. So, a good way forward would be that just to understand that should there be disclosure, one should discuss with colleagues and that wrongdoing can be discussed with employees and then there could be a discussion assessing the severity of the wrongdoing and based upon feedback from the colleagues, then an individual can move forward. These talks may cause the employees who find that there is a culture of silence or there is a little organizational support for those reporting dogmas. So, again what we see is that in this context, colleagues usually ask the whistle blower to remain silent because of the ripple effect or of the domino effect which might take place and therefore, people do not want to have uncertainty. So, even friends within the organization also try to tone down the whole issue and make the whistle blower sit down rather than raising their own voice. Now, if the employee realizes that the culture of silence is not acceptable and talks with colleagues will not change his or her mind, non-reporting and especially employee signers and alternative whistle blowing could not be encouraged. So, what we see is that based upon the discussions taking place with the colleagues or with the other employees and people are being silenced or non-reporting is going to be taking place. Now, this is something which should not be encouraged and should be actually eliminated through a proper platform or process of whistle blowing because otherwise what will happen is that whatever wrongdoings are happening within the organization, they would all be pushed under the carpet and they would be detrimental to the organization and all the stakeholders and shareholders in the long run. So, that is extremely important. An individual executes a series of actions intended to make public information about an alleged act of wrongdoing. The information becomes a matter of public record. So, again eventually all of it becomes a public record and what we see is that even though the person has tried to take support from within the organization, but yet the different stakeholders, the different employees, their professional friends, they all try to pacify the whistle blower and one way or the other they do not want the organization to be enveloped in a whistle blowing episode because it is very important that such organizations can be dangerous and sometimes can be illegal or unethical activities in the organization. So, all of this is taking place together, one way or the other the damage would be done. The individual who makes the information public is not a journalist or an ordinary citizen, but a member or a former member of the organization. So, usually that person is associated with the organization one way or the other and the consequences can be very detrimental and very damaging for all of the players be it the whistle blower or be it the organization or the people involved in the whistle blowing incident. Thank you so much.