Culture of responsibility

Japanese business culture is big on individuals stepping up to take responsibility for mistakes that have resulted in their organisation losing face.

TSE executives taking a salary cut over the latest glitch is obviously a lot less severe than the falling-on-one's-sword routine favoured by samurai of old, but what is more interesting is the action plan put forward by the exchange to remedy some of its problems.

Much of these have to do with how the TSE will manage its relationship with and test the output from external vendors - namely the beleaguered Fujitsu, which was rather surprisingly given the contract for the latest derivatives system after being held responsible for similar problems in the equity trading system in 2005.

No news yet on whether Fujitsu executives also plan to fall on their fiscal swords over the latest glitch (as they have done in the past). But with TSE talking about extending their systems consulting contract with NYSE Euronext, I suspect Fujitsu will be scrambling for ways to make it up to the TSE for fear of being squeezed out.