 Welcome back to corporate governance and we are talking about whistleblowing, trying to unfold the different aspects, dimensions, perspectives, understanding, interpretations about whistleblowing. Today we are going to be talking about factors affecting whistleblowing and again we are going to see that how the whistleblower sometimes comes out with the incident or with the issue, what are the motivation behind it and again what are the different exigencies which that whistleblower has to face during the course of whistleblowing and post whistleblowing. Now, when we are talking about the factors affecting whistleblowing, the definition of whistleblowing implies that whistleblowing is not protected under the protected disclosure. Whistleblowers come from all the levels of an organization and even from outside although in many countries legislation does not protect the letter. So, whistleblowing can be internal and also external, not the internal or external that we talked about in the last session but it could be someone internally from the organization or it could be someone from outside. For example, when we talk about auditors, so auditors are from outside it could also be a legal advisor because again the legal advisor usually from outside the organization. It could be a consultant, that consultant would be from outside the organization. It could be someone in an advisory role who while giving advice to the organization comes to know of a certain information and then whistleblowers on that particular information. So, whistleblowers usually most of the time are from within the organization, could be any level of the organization or it could also be someone from outside the organization. Now, whistleblowers may blow the whistle on sexual harassment, on fraud, inadequate health and safety measures, harmful practices, breaches of regulatory requirements, money skimming or any other form of corruption. So, all of these forms are the forms and factors affecting whistleblowing because usually especially in the context of sexual harassment in a country like Pakistan things are pushed under the rug, it could be some fraud, it could be related to some health or safety measures which are not being followed by the organization, it could be some harmful practice, breaches of regulatory requirements are very common, money skimming is also very common or any other form of corruption for example, in procurement or we could say in standardization. So, all of these are whistleblowing. Now, the factor which is affecting it is the credibility of the whistleblower. So, if people are trusted such an action may be taken seriously. So, it is very important that the credibility of the whistleblower is over there because if there is no credibility then there could be many problems and consequences of that particular whistleblowing. Then secondly is the motivation of the whistleblower if there are any suspicions about the reasons why someone chooses to blow the whistle chances are that the complaint will not be heard. So, if there is a vested interest then maybe if the whistle is being blown then there might not be the issue of credentials and what we would see is that that person would not be taken seriously and therefore, it is very important to understand where the whistleblower is coming from. So, fundamentally the credibility and secondly the motivation are extremely important factors to a judge that is the whistleblower actually concerned about the organization, society at large or individuals which are being adversely affected or is it something which is self driven and basically is being done to enhance their own standing within the organization or maybe to take revenge or something like that. So, again the credibility and motivation factor are extremely important the position of the whistleblower. So, that is also very important and that is the power and status often influence the capacity of the individual to influence management. So, again if that position is important then we see that the whistleblower will be taken more seriously. So, the power and status also are the factors which are affecting whistleblowing and they are taken into consideration when it is being done internally or externally. So, this is very very important the perceived validity of the evidence it is rather than the perceptions or the motivation of the whistleblower should be the most important reason for taking the disclosure of wrongdoing seriously. So, what we see is that the perceived validity of the evidence is also very important that whatever evidence is being given I mean do people prima facie apparently do they perceive it to be something which can be insinuating or could have some legal implications or corruption or integrity implications against the organization or the person against whom the whistle has been blown. So, this perceived validity of the evidence is extremely important which tends to affect the whistleblowing. But, if those documents or that evidence is being discredited then again the whistleblower is discredited and the issue also tends to evaporate or tends to liquidate within that perceived validity of the evidence. So, this is extremely important. Another factor is the membership of minority groups within an organization females or members of under representative ethnic groups may find it hard harder to be heard. So, again we have seen that females and organizations do not have a voice or members of an underrepresented ethnic group again sometimes they are so fearful of repercussions that they do not have a voice and they cannot whistle blow for perceived reasons of having complexities and complications of having even in flower decomplexes. So, all of these things do tend to affect whistleblowing. So, what we see is that there are different factors which are affecting whistleblowing and based upon these factors then we see that the credentials and the validity or the endorsement of whistleblowing would be accepted or not accepted. So, that is very important that these factors are taken into account and we ensure that a real incident is not undermined due to lack of evidence or due to the lack of credibility of the whistleblower. Thank you so much.