Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Decision making in economic
The importance of ethics in business
The importance of ethics in business
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the business industry, there are ethical dilemmas that occur on a daily basis. Some ethical dilemma can include stealing or even having fraudulent documents in order to get an unfair advantage within the organization. Another ethical dilemma that has been brought into the light is bribery. What makes bribery unique is that in various parts of the world, bribery has become an acceptable behavior whereas other parts of the world people would consider that as unethical behavior. In order to understand what is acceptable or not when trying to bribe public officials, we must understand the principles of what is considered to be ethical or unethical. Ethical pertains to how an individual can deal with the moral principles as to what is considered to be right and wrong in their everyday actions. What makes ethical behavior unique in that it is not a universal standard nor is it a global standard. So as a result, some people would agree that bribery is perfectly fine and it is the nature of doing As a result, the bribery practices will be adaptive to the culture of that respective country. For some countries that active bribery would be similar to tipping a public official. It can be a gesture of saying thank you however, for countries like the United States is against the law to give a gift of monetary value when the individual was acting in their official duties. Another example of cultural differences for bribery practices is a technique known to some country as grease payments. Grease payments “are payments made specifically to increase the speed at which an official might perform a duty which he was already bound to perform.” (Davis, 2004). These are typical payments that some country deemed acceptable in order for the public official to speed up the task that they are bound by the official
Realizing Ethical Issues Helps You Avoid Unethical Behaviors In this age of change, the human society is progressing rapidly on various fields. However, the ethical problems are becoming increasingly severe. According to the teaching notes of “In It To Win: The Jack Abramoff Story,” “During the Bush Administration, Abramoff was the most influential lobbyist in Washington, D.C. His excesses led to his downfall and that of Congress members with whom he was closely connected, including aides, business associates, government officials, and lawmakers.”
According to Chang, C., Chang, A., and Freese (2001) gifts and bribes are distinctly separate and while gifts are ethical, bribes are considered unethical and illegal. In some cultures particularly South Korea business practice such as the concepts of gifts and bribes are not distinctly separate. The problem is that gift giving can overlap into bribery which is both ethical and unethical at the same time (Chang, C., Chang, A., & Freese, 2001).
Consumers are quite touchy when it comes to business who practice business ethically and that only yields into higher sales and profits. Also they generally tend to endorse such brands or the company.
Bribery is one of the most serious police corruption which, involved regular payoffs to protect illegal activities. Also, officers can be bribed to sell information about criminal investigations either before or after arrests. Corruption also includes theft from arrested people or theft of drugs, money, or property from crime
Bribery is wrong, and it would be almost instinctive to point at the benefits of impartially functioning public servants and incorrupt corporations to our democratic society as justification. However, in this imperfect world where bribery is rife in varying degrees, is it possible to express this notion convincingly? Certainly 'because the UK Bribery Act says so' is far less persuasive to a council planning office in Shanghai than in London, and indeed in compliance with section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 which relates to commercial offences, it is essential that this question is engaged with on a corporate scale and without assertion through dogma. Accordingly, this essay will argue that elements wrong with bribery are inclusive of both moral and economic considerations. Moreover, in conjunction with international mandates, advent of aggressive legislation such as that of the UK Bribery Act 2010 is representative of global efforts to eliminate bribery. Hence, it follows that bribery can never be considered a normal part of business because it is economically unsustainable in the long term.
In our industry the majority of professionals considers corruption activities such as bribery to obtain planning permission or contracts; billing for unperformed work; production of fraudulent invoices; concealment of bribes; false or exaggerated claims; collusion and cartel activity; inclusion of extra cost to contract claim; cover pricing; employment of illegal workers; cover pricing; and leaking of information to a preferential bidder. Nevertheless are practices that exist in construction, and this is because the people start with small things, and in the end, people will tolerate this behaviour gradually, without realising that his moral scale has been
As there is petty and grand corruption, the notion of corruption can take various forms. Petty corruption often involves smaller amounts of money or “small pay-offs,” such as bribery, and is often perceived as more tolerable because citizens do not see a way around it (Uslaner 9; 11). Grand corruption, on the other hand, enriches a few people and angers the majority of people because it shows a systemic inequality. It thus involves a much larger sum of money (Uslaner 11). The normal conception of corruption has been the “abuse of public office for private gain,” but this definition has been outgrown by modern democracies (Warren, “What Does Corruption Mean in a Democracy?” 329). Over the last half century, political development has transformed extremely rapidly and democracies no longer pertain solely to
5) describes corruption as payment of unauthorized benefits for performing or non-performance of a specific task. Corruption involves a number of schemes, such as bribery, aiding and abetting, extortion, and conflict of interest schemes which usually involves a person inside the entity working with a person outside the entity, even though one might be considered an unwilling party. Corruption is therefore based on related-party transactions, and usually the relationship is not known (Singleton and Singleton, 2010, p. 63). A case in point is the Bribery scandal of Siemens at the start of the century who were identified as having paid bribes to help sell power generation equipment in Italy, telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria, National Identity cards in Argentina and a few others around the globe in millions of euros to win lucrative contracts . The Company identified questionable payments from 2000 to
Corruption in public procurement takes place at each stage of the procurement process. From the early stages of procurement planning to contract implementation, the procurement process is rife with opportunities for corruption, with evidence suggesting that in environments characterized by a lack of transparency and high monitoring costs, bribery plays a critical role in determining which firms win public contracts. According to Transparency International, the losses associated with public procurement bribery are estimated to exceed $400 billion per year
The International community has to generate new and improved ways to equal the corruption playing field to Transparency International standards. Yet, greedy individuals and corrupt cultures produce an international business culture where bribery is the norms. Until the cultural norms of bribery are changed, it is this reviews opinion that the propensity to bribe will stay the same.
The study of corruption is problematic because the concept, in itself, is difficult to define and operationalize. Firstly, there are many types of corruption such as political, bureaucratic, private, collective, redistribution and extractive corruption (Amundsen 1999). Secondly, the different types of corruption sometimes overlap with each other such as political and bureaucratic corruption. Thirdly, the conception of corruption differs between socio-cultural contexts.
Argandona, A., (2005). Corruption and Companies: The use of Facilitating Payments, in Journal of Business Ethics, 60, 251-264
Ethics is simply doing the right thing. In the business situation ethics are the moral concept of a firm getting through it organizational duties ethically.
I have family members that work at companies that make business in countries where bribes and kickbacks are common. Nevertheless, those companies train their employees to not engage on those type of agreements and how to recognize a potential relationship that should be avoid to ensure that the rules are followed and business is established honestly and responsibly following all applicable government rules and
The existence of bribery and unethical behavior is rampant in the world market and may not change overnight. The question of bribery has been distilled in business literature as a question of ethics. In this situation at the airport with the customs officer, it is important to distinguish between business ethics and personal ethics. In a business ethics situation, the Foreign Corruption Practices Act would prohibit offering any bribe to the custom office – for example to free a shipment of goods that was lost in red tape (Pitman & Sanford, 2006). Most companies also have policies against bribery as well. In this situation, however the main issue at hand is that of personal ethics. When in a situation where your company is unknown and there is no business being conducted, normal business ethics and laws (including FCPA) do not apply only personal ethical standards.