SCAPEGOATISM

By

Kastuv Ray

Introduction

Scapegoatism unfortunately happens to be an inherent part of human nature. At some point in our life, even the best of individuals blame someone for something, which was not their fault. Suppose you have an eight-month-old child and you are feeding her baby food, followed by small apple slices and bananas and then jelly! Hypothetically suppose that acid builds up and she vomits on you and you blame the baby. The real culprit is yourself and not the baby, as common sense should have prevailed when you were feeding her. This of course is a slightly harmless example of scapegoatism. In many cases, violent actions can be taken against innocents. In the workplace and world arena, some innocent scapegoats have been disciplined, lost their jobs and been defamed or even slung in jail for crimes not committed by them.

Blame

The following is a quote about blame taken from Cassell’s Humorous Quotations by Nigel Rees. This originally appeared in a story in the Financial Times on 9 July 1998:

“This is a story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it. Nobody realized Everybody wouldn’t do it. In the end, Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.”

As confusing as this story sounds, this does happen quite often in practice.

Mitigating Against Scapegoatism

Since blaming others for our own failings is a dark side of human nature, no one action can prevent it from happening. We can establish certain cultures in our organizations or workplace, which may act as preventative controls, and there is always the chance that something will manage to get through the gap.

Establishing Ethical Standards

One way of preventing innocents from being blamed is to establish ethical standards in an organization (this may be particularly useful if the actual perpetrators have broken ethical codes of conduct and taken morally wrong actions). From an internal audit perspective here are some suggestions:

• Produce a policy statement with respect to ethical standards
• Produce an annual report/internal control statement on ethical standards
• Create a post for an Ethical Standards Officer (ESO)
• Include the requirement for the ESO to submit annual reports on possible/potential/actual violations of ethical standards in his or her job description
• Decide whether or not the Board or its subcommittees or members of the public have access to view these reports
• Establish standards of ethical conduct for employees
• Establish policies and procedures to deal with ethical conflict
• Create an ethics hotline
• Measure and monitor performance against ethical standards
• Train employees on ethics
• Establish an Ethical Standards Committee with clear terms of reference on how to deal with ethical violations

Protecting Employees from Harassment

Sometimes the scapegoat is an individual who is the victim of harassment by a colleague or boss. Therefore in these circumstances, it may be necessary to establish and create a Harassment Policy and subsequent procedures to deal with such conflicts. Again some suggestions are listed below from an internal audit perspective:

• Produce a policy statement with respect to harassment
• Publicize the policy statement
• Nominate a Corporate Champion to deal with harassment issues
• Suggest informal remedies to combat harassment
• Establish a formal procedure to deal with cases of alleged harassment
• Establish and create procedures which identify existing or potential problems of harassment
• Undertake risk assessments which take account of personal risks
• Provide training on harassment and conflict resolution
• Monitor and review the Harassment Policy
• Review policies after each incident to evaluate strategic success (this should be undertaken by Senior Management)

Conclusion

There is no one universal method to deal with scapegoatism and magic wands cannot be waved to make the problem go away. The suggestions detailed above are merely meant as anesthetics (both local and general) to numb the pain for a while. One must remember that companies like Enron and those that have scandals had brilliant ethical codes and policies but sadly these policies were not followed and neither was a compliance culture developed in the organizations in question.

Contributed by Kastuv Ray 12/01/04
kastuv@kastuv.fsnet.co.uk