Ethics in International Business

With the ramified economic changes and complex business functioning, each and every organization has to face ethical and legal issues throughout the time. Ethics could be defined as moral philosophy or principles that involve systematizing, defending and recommend the concept of undertaking right and wrong concept. In this report ethical theories and issues faced by the different individuals and organization will be discussed. However, the main focus would be on dealing with the moral principles in relation to the bribery and corruption cases and how these two acts of the individuals are affecting others. In this report, international business ethics issues and associated factors which could directly and indirectly impact the ethical aspects of the international business have been taken into consideration.

Ethics could be defined as guide that is used by people to live and relate to other in society in good manner. However, while running busienss on international level, all the organization needs to identify whether the undertaken business actions are not impacting others. There are several key terms which need to be undertaken by the organizations while running their business on international level such as belief, culture, ethics, morals, values, intake form (Medeiros, et al. 2017). These aspects assist in identifying the main factors of the business which have positive and negative impact on the society from the undertaken business actions.  It is analyzed that international busienss is accompanied with the foreign business environment which differ from home business environment such as physical, cultural, legal political, economic, competitive and distributive dimensions (Ballantine, Guo, & Larres, 2018).

It is analyzed that Bribery and corruption both have long been undertaken or perceived as major obstacles for the socio-economic development which not only distort national and international economic relation but also negatively impact the ethical support system of economy in long run.  It is considered those both are the two aspect of same coin and has several negative impacts on the people. Corruption strategies will impact could be defined as illegitimate use of office or designation which may include different types of crime (Carroll, & Buchholtz, 2014). On the other hand, Bribery could be defined as other aspect which is limited to or extent to the acceptance of payment or other offers for the illegitimate advantages (McDonald, 2014).

Ethics, morality, personhood and moral accountability are the major aspects which need to be considered by the international busienss organizations while operating their busienss on international level (Boiral, Heras-Saizarbitoria, Brotherton, & Bernard, 2018). It is considered that Bureaucratic corruption is accompanied with the corruption in international business market. Companies that are indulged in running their busienss on international level have to deploy tackling gift and attractive prices in order to keep up with the peers in this fast moving international world. With the ramified changes in international business, many business organizations are indulged in giving bribery as Bureaucratic corruption to other peoples so that they could do their work more efficiently. In the latest bribery report from the transparency international, it is found that bribery in the international business segments has increased to 68% in 2015 and the major countries which have high amount of bribery cases are Canada, Hong Kong, Denmark and Singapore. Nonetheless, in some of the countries, when companies are starting up their new busienss, they have found bribery as country culture which is required as behaviour of adapting to local environment (Crane, & Matten, 2016).  The main reason of bribery and corruption in international busienss practice arises due to the unfair trade practices and less strict international business policies. It is analyzed that with the increasing use of bribery and corruption on international level the main negative happens to be unfair and inefficient allocation of resources and opportunities. It also somewhere negatively impact the transparency of the business functioning and destruct the true and fair view of the booked assets and liabilities in long run (Collins, 2018).

Examining Bribery and Corruption

In countries like, Hong-Kong, Malaysia and Luxemburg , when all the big rivals and business organizations are giving bribers to local government and supporting bodies in the best interest of their busienss then it becomes mandatory for the newly set up organizations to follow the same trend to compete with those big organization. However, it becomes the biggest ethical dilemma to decide whether to give bribe or not to other parities for all the organizations while running their business successfully in international market segments (Gasparski,  2018).  Nonetheless, many of the researchers have insisted that bribe as immoral and companies do not have to indulged in corruption and bribery to compete in the market.  they have to suggest that all the international organizations needs to establish the harmonization in their domestic and international legal compliance program to mitigate the issues like legal penalties, high business traits so that they could easily compete with the highly set up business program. In addition to this, immoral acts, bribery and inclination of companies towards the corruption may also negatively impact their brand image on international level (Reynolds, & Dang, (2017). Ethical morality and personhood are the major aspects which need to be undertaken by the organization on international level to mitigate the bribery and corruptions issues in economy (Palich, ., Neubert, & McKinney, 2018).

With the increasing complexity and ramified economic factors, many organizations are facing ethical issues while operating their business on international level. In order to mitigate the ethical issues related to corruption and bribery, there are several ethical theories which could be used such as teleological theory, deontological virtue theory, busienss ethics theory and system development theory (Neill, 2017). Organization operating their business on international could easily use the teleological ethical theory to establish the nexus between the consequences of actions which means basic standards for the actions to determine the right and wrong actions. It will allow international busienss organizations to determine the long term negative impact of bribery and corruption cases on the stakeholders (Rhodes, & Pullen, 2018).  In addition to this, managers of the international business organizations could also take assistance from the deontological ethical theory to determine whether the action of corruption and bribery will be morally right or not.  The virtue ethical theories will assist in determining the ethical value for the people who will get affected by the undertaken bribery and corruption cases in the long run. It has been observed that if company could easily determine the negative impact of the corruption and bribery then it will be easy for them to mitigate these types of cases in organization. The system development ethical theory will play pivotal role in assessing the sensitivity of the organizational process work towards the bribery and corruption cases. This system development ethical theory will be good assistance for the international busienss organizations to develop work supporting culture which will determines the ethical value of the undertaken action on international level. These all the theories have suggested that companies might face issues to operate their busienss on international business but taking assistance of bribery and corruption in the busienss process will reflect the negative impact on the business in long run (Testa, et al. 2018). Nonetheless, managers of the international business organizations might face issue in handling the bribery cases in the fast moving competitive environment. These managers needs to set up the strengthen code of conduct, policies and program and organizational culture which will work as anti-bribery and corruption program in organization. The promotion of this organizational culture and code of conduct might increase the overall cost of production process in short term period but in long time period company will perceive increased international brand image and low amount of penalties and issues in its business process (Sauser Jr, & Sims, 2018).

Factors Contributing to Bribery and Corruption

The main method to mitigate the ethical issues in the international business organization is related to increasing the overall outcomes is related to adopting the ethical business practice and implementing the code of ethical program for the increased business outcomes. Firstly, managers of the international business organization need to strengthen the policies and program to mitigate the code of ethics issues and dimensional work program (Schaltegger, & Burritt, 2018). This code of ethics issues and dimensional work program should focus on expediting bureaucratic processes, promotion, corporate hospitality and lobbying to influence government policies to mitigate the possible global international busienss ethical issues in long run. The main focus of organization should be related to mitigating the ethical issues and rendering the most possible benefits to the stakeholders at large. It is further considered that international busienss organization could mitigate the loss of bribery and corruption if they use the advance technologies and system process in their value chain activities. It is analyzed that if an international business organization wants to mitigate the bribery and corruption issues then the strengthen code of conduct will be followed in its busienss process chain activities and after that strict penalties needs to be imposed for the individual in organization whosoever is indulged in this type of activities in long run. Therefore, after analysing all the different ethical theories and business practices, it could be inferred that company should firstly focuses on the ethical issues areas which needs to be mitigated and after supporting theories should be used to develop an effective international busienss functional program (Crane, and Matten, 2016).The main focus of ethical theories adopted by international busienss organization would be on strengthen the corporate hospitality to support its stakeholders, increasing the transparency of the business and mitigating the cases of lobbying to influence government policies (Withers, & Ebrahimpour, 2018).

Ethical issues in the international busienss process are inevitable due to the globalised business condition. Bribery and corruption both have long been undertaken or perceived as major obstacles for the socio-economic development which not only distort national and international economic relation but also negatively impact the ethical support system of economy in long run. All the international business organization needs to develop the ethical support system which could mitigate the possible ethical and business issues. Nonetheless, proper set up program, use of ethical theories and practices and implemented strategies approach will be the foundation for international busienss organizations to mitigate the possible ethical issues in the business.

References

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