Corruption in Business Corruption may occur through unethical means to gain some advantage over another. The United States carries a history in which businesses and corporations commit unjust actions for both personal and financial gain. While the executives at Norton close a seven billion dollar deal with China, the N-22 commercial plane bears a malfunction and nearly costs the sale. In Airframe, Michael Crichton explains the phenomenon of companies taking advantage of people for their own good. The media carries a vast history of exaggerating a story, or leaving out key facts to make the story more appealing to its audience. In turn, this keeps the audience intrigued and wanting more. Newsline, the biggest news channel in America, does this exact thing to Norton. During the Newsline show, the casualties are reported and a video of the crash is shown but it is not explained how and why this happened. The main emphasis is that the N-22 plane is not safe and should not be flown. Later it is revealed that the crash was in fact the pilot’s fault and not the manufacturers. Newsline …show more content…
Norton recently had a private election to elect a new CEO. When John Marder lost the election to Graham Moore he was upset, but rather than wait for the next opportunity to become CEO he decides to try and overthrow Moore and take over the company. He does this by hiring private investigators to find dirt on Graham and sabotages Moore's seven billion dollar sale with China. This had massive repercussions on the company, "With this China sale falling through were going to have lay off 25,000 people and do pay cuts"(p.265). In the end, Graham resolves the nearly-lost sale, and John Marder walks away from the company with no penalty. This could have been a disaster for Norton as their company would have fallen without their purchase order from
By the mid 20th century, the scale and prominence of corruption had increased dramatically, due to the widespread transition to vast urban cities and industrialized systems. The greed and desperation that resulted from the shift towards industrialism accelerated the growth of corruption in politics. Although the shift to industry was a necessary stepping stone in the development of the modern society existing today, it was accompanied by various consequences to American society and facilitated the corruption of government officials. The exploitation of fellow
William Paley’s, The Argument from Design, talks a great deal about a being coming across a watch and questioning why the watch was there and how the watch was created there. He stated that there must have been a creator to the watch. Everything that has a design has a creator and that how nobody had ever seen the creator at work as he crafts this piece of art altogether to the point of where everything is put in place and has a purpose, that if even one thing was out of place that the watch would not tick, or for that matter, never work at all.
Corruption is an individual and institutional process where there is a gain by a public official from a briber and in return receives a service. Between the gain and the service, there is an improper connection, (Thompson p.28). The two major categories of bribery is individual and institutional corruption. Receiving personal goods for the pursuit of one’s own benefit is personal fraud. An example of individual distortion is the financial scandal involving David Durenberger. Organizational corruption involves “receiving goods that are useable primarily in the political process and are necessary for doing a job or are essential by-products of doing it,” (Thompson p.30). An instance of institutional fraud is the Keating Five case. There are also times where there is a mixture of both individual and organizational corruption in a scandal. An example of this diverse combination is James C. Wright Jr. actions while he was the Speaker of the House.
Lastly, by holding unlawful job negotiations with a Pentagon official, the Boeing former financial officer was seen to be breaching the utilitarianism principle. Moreover, concealing of the findings of the internal studies regarding gender’s pay further illustrates this ethical lapse in Boeing.
The word race is defined at its core as a competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc. to see which is the fastest in covering a set course. Well, interestingly enough, a race of a different kind occurred between two countries from the years 1957 to 1969. The competition was unclear, and the opponents were on two entirely different continents, not something as simplistic as two horses. The United States and the United Soviet States of Russia both set out as arch rivals in the “Space Race,” a quest for dominance beyond the known Planet Earth. Ironically enough, just as communism was spreading to all parts of the world, the United States always sought to squash this form of government, despite somewhat dire consequences. Now, with
Today, worldwide, there are several thousands of crimes being committed. Some don’t necessarily require a lethal weapon but are associated with various types of sophisticated fraud, this also known as a white-collar crime. These crimes involve a few different methods that take place within a business setting. While ethical business practices add money to the bottom line, unethical practices are ultimately leading to business failure and impacting the U.S. financially.
Enron Corporation was based in Houston, Texas and participated in the wholesale exchange of American energy and commodities (ex. electricity and natural gas). Enron found itself in the middle of a very public accounting fraud scandal in the early 2000s. The corruption of Enron’s CFO and top executives bring to question their ethics and ethical culture of the company. Additionally, examining Enron ethics, their organization culture, will help to determine how their criminal acts could have been prevented.
When an ethical dilemma arises within an organization, it is difficult to separate right and wrong with what is best for the majority. Sometimes the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.” In 2002, Enron Corporation shows us just that. By 2002, the sixth-largest corporation in America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case of the Enron scandal is one of the best examples of corporate greed and fraud in America.
Tyco provides products and services across the world. The company is global and diversified providing a variety of products including electronics, healthcare, fire and security services and engineered products and services. While employing over 250,000 people worldwide they grossed approximately $40 billion in revenue in the year 2005. In 2002 Tyco was involved with the corporate scandal where the management mis-appropriated corporation funds. The previous CEO Dennis Kozlowski was convicted in 2005 on 22 counts of the 23 that he was charged with. This is an example of not only a legal issue of responsibility but also one of an ethical issue that the Tyco Corporation has had to face. In the face of the legal and ethical issues that this mishap had placed the corporation in, Tyco placed Ed Breen in as chairman and CEO. Mr. Breen joined the company in 2002 after the scandal and immediately began the rebuild of the company’s name. With the appointment of Ed Breen and his changing of the company’s ethical standards (to be discussed in the next portion of the paper) he promotes the legal responsibilities of not only the company’s employees but the responsibilities of the suppliers and buyers to report any wrong doing. This reporting also speaks to the ethics of the Tyco corporation employees as well as those of the companies th...
Corruption consists in the illegitimate agreement between a corruptor and a corrupted, in which they abuse of their public power in order to obtain personal benefit. Bribery and corruption is something that has been going on for years. According to Allen, “officials perceive themselves as immune to any penalties for demanding and receiving bribes” which she states that it is one of the main reasons for bribery and corruption in underdeveloped countries. According to Transparency International, an organization committed exclusively to end corruption, three of the most corrupt countries in the world are Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan. This does not mean that corruption is only seen in underdeveloped countries. In international business, corporate employees often find themselves dealing with corruptors in foreign countries and, in most cases, they will give in.
The greed for money, power and fame. Within the corporate world, we hear of companies resorting to underhand means to attain more money, more power, and when they attain it, the vicious cycle repeats itself. However, their fall is inevitable because the law ultimately apprehends them.
“We were both members of the Civil Rights Movement, We met 47 years ago on a picket line” [Stanton, 2013]. This is a typical representation of what this photo book offers in terms of interactions with the subjects of the photographs. The title of this photo book is aptly named Humans Of New York, it is the first thing that sprung out to the editor after compiling his images together for the first time [Stanton, 2013: p2] which is often referred too as the acronym HONY. This body of work was all photographed by just one man named Brandon Stanton who has walked hundreds of miles around New York every single day to stumble across all these people to photograph and to ask them questions such as what is the saddest thing that has ever happened in these subjects personal lives [Bosman, 2013: Online]. This photo book composes of 400 colour images of New Yorkers at their best and worst [New York Times, 2013: Online]. The genre of this photo book is more of a fusion between of a documentary style and candid photography in which the photographer displays an in-depth emotional connection with his subjects. Stanton also dabbles in a little street fashion that is evident in parts his work. While a lot of photographers tend to center on one specific idea like a depraved area, the homeless or perhaps minorities in an area. Stanton does reflect on these areas but he goes into a much broader spectrum, through interacting with his subjects and portraying a more buoyant and optimistic insight into the people of New York. This photo book has sold over 145,000 copies worldwide within one month of it being published. HONY has gone viral across America, the United Kingdom and across China and the fan base continues to grow daily [Bosman, 2013: online]. ...
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.
Montesh, M. (n.d.). Conceptualizing Corruption: Forms, Causes, Types and Consequences. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from
Global Challenge: Building the New Worldwide Enterprise. McGRAW-HILL Book Company Europe. NEELANKAVIL, James P. (2003). International Business Corruption: A Framework of Causes, Effects, and Prescriptions. Hofstra University Press.