Ethics Paper
An American Executive in Columbia pays off a drug lord so that his factory is not bombed and his workers killed. An American firm bribes officials in a small town in Mexico to let them dump their toxic waste in their local landfill. These are two clear cut examples of what is right and wrong in regards to ethical issues in the ever emerging global market. (Integrity, on a global scale) Nonetheless issues such as these have to be attended to and dealt with in the real world every day by Western businesses competing in the global economy. Sometimes it may be difficult to see the line between what a good business strategy is, and what is ethical. However it is the responsibility of Western corporations not to follow the norms of the countries they are located in that are deemed as unethical back home. Problems such as bribery, labor practices, culture clashing, and pollution have spurned businesses going global for years. It is the responsibility of corporations competing in the global market to raise standards not only within the company itself, but also in the country in which it is located.
One may argue that a business has no right to try to impose upon a country its own values or principals. Imagine a Western corporation that entered a Middle Eastern country and attempted to broadcast its ideas on TV about how the Western culture was much better than that of their own. The result would be apocalyptic at best for the future of that company. Rather look back to 1995 when Shell suffered a huge blow to its reputation. Shell had extensive operations in Nigeria. That year a human-rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was to be executed and Shell did not rai ...