Thanks for the message, and it’s nice to get information about the case through such an informal channel, although based on some comments written here, LinkedIn is also heating up around the issue. I don’t use that service myself, so I’m not exactly sure what might have been written about the matter there. Inevitably, however, some more critical thoughts also arose, so let’s start breaking them down point by point.
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The fact that none of the responsible parties felt that business couldn’t be done with the UAE at all doesn’t, in my opinion, particularly blunt the edge of the criticism in the Helsingin Sanomat (HS) article. The problem raised by HS (which, based on Nylund’s text, is certainly known to you as well) is that the product being sold carries a realistic risk of being used for serious human rights violations that are perfectly permissible under the laws of the purchasing party. So the problem is not so much the UAE itself, but what is being sold to the UAE. This looks very bad in a situation where the company that manufactured the product has positioned itself as a pioneer of the ethical digital world. I consider it significantly less likely that HS would pick up on a case like this if you were selling, for example, Finnish spring water to the shelves of local grocery stores in the UAE. Of course, the ethical pathos of Gofore’s communication would make even this possible, but the drinking water in my imagined example is a rather weak tool for mass surveillance. Thus, the HS article would lose its realistic basis and slip into the realm of pure moral policing. Now, the concern presented in the article is concrete and recognized by Gofore as well.
As for the common alignment you mentioned between the ethical committee and business management regarding the need for more information, isn’t this “common” alignment still a result of the ethical committee’s primary recommendation (no-go) not being followed? In that case, couldn’t we also speak of a business management policy that the ethical committee has accepted as an alternative starting point for further measures, if it is decided not to act according to the committee’s primary recommendation? This may seem like splitting hairs, but as someone interested in and having studied corporate communication a bit, I cannot help but mention that it is precisely with these kinds of nuances that an image is built in the reader’s eyes that the process has been conducted between two equal actors. In reality, or at least according to my understanding, Gofore’s business management makes the final decisions on a case-by-case basis, either based on the ethical committee’s recommendations or regardless of them. Maintaining the image of equality between the ethical committee and business management is likely important for Gofore, however, as the need for the ethical committee’s existence and the costs of maintaining it are easy for shareholders to question if it turns out that the committee has no real power in the company’s decision-making. In any case, ultimately, in this situation, instead of the ethical committee’s opinions, it seems that what is being weighed above all is whether Gofore’s business management’s ethics will bend in the face of UAE money.
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This is certainly true, and in my opinion, the public discussion resulting from this newspaper article has also been interesting and necessary, just as the internal discussion within the company has been. It is tragicomic, however, that in Nylund’s text seen in the illustration of the HS article, this project is considered a risk to the Gofore staff’s opportunity to engage in open discussion. To some extent, this risk has already been realized now that the company may have to restrict its own practices regarding the openness of discussion in the future. On the other hand, the immediate hinting at the possibility of legal action seen in the press release shared here fresh off the presses appeared to me as a communication strategy that could have been taken from the textbook of the other party in these tender negotiations, and it is precisely this kind of influence that Nylund’s concern about the narrowing of employees’ discussion opportunities was, in my opinion, directed at. Publicly intimidating employees into silence always smells like something other than democracy.
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Damage has certainly been caused one way or another, there’s no getting around that, although the public media frenzy has remained surprisingly mild in my eyes so far. Regarding transparency, I wondered in a message I wrote earlier in this thread whether the company would have had the opportunity to inform about the start of such negotiations, for example, at the stage when the matter was referred to the ethical committee for review? Of course, this would probably have had to be implemented in a fairly general manner without revealing the trading partner and the exact details of the potential agreement. Now, however, it feels as if the possibility of a leak had not been sufficiently taken into account when planning the communication strategy for a sensitive project, even though I believe that information spreading outside the house from within a work community of almost 1,900 people is inevitable, especially when the volatility of the UAE as a business partner is crystal clear.
Later, I have wondered to myself how such ethical starting points are taken into account at all when negotiating cooperation arrangements. Are the other parties to the negotiations told about the ethical principles of the company’s operations and that a separate committee reviews the potential risks of the offer before signatures are put to paper? Is this ethical side at all a factor in these competitive tenders, or is it kept entirely as an internal company matter and separate from the actual negotiations? One could think that a company that has publicly defined ethics as the cornerstone of its operations would demand that its partners also be ready to sign off on the ethical principles that the company itself holds as its values.
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I don’t have much to comment on this, as it is difficult to criticize Finnish companies attracting interest around the world.
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Not all companies call themselves ethical pioneers in their field, so not all companies are scrutinized from an ethical perspective. There is also nothing unfair about the news media assuming that such a company stands behind its words. Thus, it is easy to understand why Gofore specifically ended up as the subject of the article. It won’t change no matter how much one nitpicks, but of course, resentment is also understandable and permissible in this situation.
The fact that critical individuals are in the minority at Gofore does not mean they are wrong, so appealing to the size of the staff is irrelevant to ethical questions and directs thinking towards the idea that ethics itself is a kind of majority/minority setup like a vote. In any case, if this Project Horizon proceeds to completion, history will show whether the fears of individual employees regarding these ethical issues were necessary or whether the positive social goals linked to the project can be promoted. Hopefully, we will then be able to discuss the matter on this forum as well, in the spirit of open and public discussion, utilizing our freedom of speech!