Case Study Report on Olympus Company: Assessing Ethical, Lawful and Professional Practices

Individual Case Study Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
OVERVIEW OF THE CASE STUDY........................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Assessing the drawbacks of Olympus Company by applying theories of ethical, lawful and
professional practices...................................................................................................................4
Analysing lawful practices of the Olympus company.................................................................5
Human relation theory.................................................................................................................7
Assessing the change management in the organization...............................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following report will illustrate the roles played HR in managing finance structure of
an organization by regulating rules and regulations and regular check fraud ism by conducting
surveys and meetings. This report will also highlight fraud scandal of Olympus company along
with discussing the use of ethical, stakeholder and human relation theory by providing the
importance of change management theory assisted by the role of HR.
INTRODUCTION
For every organization to run smoothly and successfully it is very important to proper
management of it by different team members and the HR of the organization. A good flow of
information regarding the profit in funds or any change in policy of the organization builds up
the trust level among the employees. The HR plays crucial role in dealing with the problems of
the organization by choosing between the right and wrong strategies which will further help in
the growth and development of the business (Kreismann and Talaulicar, 2021). For managing the
different responsibilities at the organization the HR plays crucial role in hiring the employees
and give them proper training sessions to understand the policies and strategies of the business
by proper staffing and assigning work to the employees according to their capabilities.
Maintaining the security of the organization is also a crucial role of the HR. The following report
will illustrate the case study of Olympus in which the company was held accountable for massive
fraud. Along with this the report will also highlight the important role-played by HR in
overcoming the scandal situation by the use of various ethical, inclusive and professional
practises that the company should follow along with the adopting change mangement in the
organization.
OVERVIEW OF THE CASE STUDY
The case study is about the fraud finance scandal of the Olympus company which deals
in manufacturing cameras and medical equipments. The company faced major downfall in the
year 2011 when Michael Woodford exposed the illegal finance methods that the company was
following to hide the huge investment losses from 1990s (Gottschalk and Benson, 2020). Very
few executives of the company were aware about the finance scandal but did not reveal these
illegal means of payments. It is also suspected that the company is involved in paying payments
to the criminal organization which totally against the law and will have to face the consequences
if found accused.

MAIN BODY
Assessing the drawbacks of Olympus Company by applying theories of ethical, lawful and
professional practices
Ethical theory
This theory of ethics states the moral values of an individual to see and focus on the right
and wrong actions of people. The morality of peoples actions is measured by their role of duties
towards other human beings in carrying out any process by legal means. This theory highlights
the importance of the duties that an individual performs in an organization and the outcome is
based on rules to compare between the right and wrong actions performed by an individual.
Role of ethical theories
As found from the case study that the Olympus company was involved in illegal and
inappropriate methods of fraud in the finance management. It was involved in hiding the losses
and covering them which is ultimately led in creating bad reputation of the company along with
accused of criminal payments (Küberling-Jost, 2021). It's been found through the case study that
the company's higher authorities used their power to oppress the employees and other executives
to not reveal the looses the company was concealing which also caused huge loss to the
stakeholders of the company who had invested in it. The dominating power by the higher
authorities led to hide the company's fraud means.
The deontology ethical theory can be applied in this case study which will help in setting
out rules to compare between what is right and wrong for the company. According to this theory
it is totally wrong actions of the executive authorities to abuse other people at the work with their
power and oppress them to hide the fraud illegal actions of the company. Which is totally unfair
for both the company employees and the stakeholders who invested in the company (Hughes,
2019). The moral actions of the company's President Tsiyoshi Kikukawa were totally wrong and
inappropriate in following unfair means like Tobashi schemes to hide the losses and not taking
any actions on the violation of company's rules.
The Consequentialism ethical theory plays role in determining what is right for everyone and
focuses on the outcomes of the actions. This theory directly targets the bad consequences faced
by wrong actions of the team executives in fraud and hiding clients losses since 1990s which led
to downfall of the company.
Role of HR in overcoming the problems of OLYMPUS company