Business_Ethics_Across_Cultures

Business Ethics Across Cultures Socorro Rodriguez Axia College of University of Phoenix Abstract In today's world and with the advent of the internet, everything from personal relationships to business has become global for all intents and purposes. You can talk to people across the world just as easily as if you were talking to your next door neighbor. Businesses can exchange documents of all sorts with the push of a button - without having to wait days, and often weeks, for those documents to be delivered by hand. We are global, and this has had a profound effect in the area of business ethics. We can do business with people from all over the world. We can conference call and meet without having to travel miles-an- miles away. Business Ethics Across Cultures My first article is published in Central America: 17 June 2008, last edited : 19 June 2008, UN calls for human rights accountability. Community appeals in Kazakhstan and Nicaragua. This article a UN World Bank's investment arbitration facility is at odds with the protection of human rights. The CAO has found that the IFC violated its own standards in Kazakhstan, and a new complaint has been lodged against an IFC-funded sugar company in Nicaragua; accountability for human rights violations are at the centre of both cases. The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) has found that the IFC is out of compliance with its own safety standards for toxic emissions at the giant Karachaganak oil and gas field in western Kazakhstan. Working unsafe is unethically, you are not taking care of your employees, shareholders, and customers. Local residents have suffered respiratory, nervous system and skin ailments, caused by extremely high levels of hydrogen sulphide emissions. The CAO found the monitoring program and smokestack emissions data "insufficient in order to verify compliance with IFC requirements". A complaint has been submitted to the CAO by local residents of León and Chinandega states and former employees affected by the operations of Nicaragua Sugar Estate Limited (NSEL). Issues raised include: health problems, union busting activity, air and soil pollution, groundwater depletion, and harassment of whistleblowers. If the workers are not healthy they will not perform at their best and the job will not get done. Both Kazakhstan and Nicaragua have failed to maintain The Center for International Environmental Law. The Public interest, a not-for-profit environmental law firm founded in the USA to strengthen international and comparative law and policy around the world. Such investor challenges occur under arbitration processes that are conducted in strict confidentiality, often failing to alert the public in the country facing a claim. "Institutions supporting investments" develop arbitration procedures which better "balance investor interests and the needs of host states to discharge their human rights obligations". This is a direct challenge to the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a tribunal which rules on cases against governments brought by foreign investors. Businesses should not operate in countries with human rights violations unless they can be catalysts for democratic reform: Do not intentional direct harm to the host country Produce more good than bad for the host country Contribute to the host country's development Respect the human rights of its employees Pay one’s fair share of taxes Respect the local culture and work with it Cooperate when local governments reform social institutions, such as land and tax reform. My manager has helped set up a performance plan, sat down to discuss the mid-year review and yet the employees continue to blame the manager for their progress not going anywhere. What the manager did was find out what was going on with the employees. exactly why the employees were not meeting expectations. Perhaps employees were unclear about what the manger wanted them to do. Many times employees many may lack the time, tools, talent, training, or temperament required to effectively perform the job. They may disagree with requirements or expectations. Regardless, you won't have a performing, engaged employee until you identify what is wrong with the employee's functioning. The second article published: Africa, The Market of Tomorrow: Many African countries are becoming more conducive to business development. Positive moves and policies adopted by many African governments have played a significant role in promoting Africa as a viable business partner in the global market. Exchange rates have been liberalized; restrictions on imports have been removed; tariffs are being reduced; price controls on agricultural products and manufactured goods have been removed; steps have been taken to address the financial stress on banks; and economic growth has picked up to around 4 per cent overall for the continent. All these factors have contributed in the development of a thriving local and international business community within Africa. . It seems they have everything in place and are ready for business. African business culture differs from the Middle Eastern business culture. Middle East companies introduce themselves to the African buyers differently. Important factors for the local entrepreneur because success or failure in Africa will depend on the ability to understand and adjust to Africa s dynamic market. The complex and changing African environment requires businessmen to have a degree of flexibility. The potential for turbulence requires businessmen to monitor and assess the political risks in the countries with whom they are doing business. In Africa people are sensitive about how you pronounce their names, they do not want you to be patronizing or show prejudice, bias, or stereotypical beliefs. Very interesting I found you should avoid condescending behavior. What we must realize is that what may be deemed ethical in our own country is not necessarily deemed as ethical in another country. This often makes conducting global business quite hard. At one time, because we did not have the Internet, it was more of a question of not accidentally disrespecting on another's customs and traditions. However, today, there is much more at stake. You must also not trample all over another businesses - or countries - ethical code, while you remain true to your own businesses or country's ethical code. Global business also has a profound effect on your employees. For example, if you do business with a foreign country that only keeps regular business hours - in their time zone - one or more of your employees will need to be available for telephone calls and such, when it is convenient for the foreign company. Are you expecting your employees to be in the office to field those calls or to conduct those teleconferences at midnight, and expecting them to clock in bright an early the following morning' That is not very ethical. Another area that has become a growing concern when it comes to global business and ethics is reporting income from foreign countries. If your company makes a sale to a company in Canada, for example, that sale will not be reported to the IRS in the United States by the company that you made the sale to or Canada's government. It is not, by anyone's standards, ethical not to report that income to the IRS yourself. In many countries, bribing officials is a part of doing business. However, this does not make the practice ethical, and experts advise business owners to instruct all of their employees that such practices will not be tolerated when conducting global business - or even when conducting business in your own country. When we think of moral dilemmas that multinationals face we usually think of the pressure on companies to bribe government officials in third world countries. Although bribery of government officials also takes place in the United States, it is rare and severely punished. By contrast, bribery happens with greater frequency in third world countries, and there is a feeling that it is normal practice to bribe government officials. We may succinctly define a bribery as condition in which a person, such as a government official, agrees to be paid to act as dictated by an interested party, rather than doing what is required of him in his official employment. What is central to the notion of a bribe is that an agreement is made, even if the act itself is never performed and the payment is never made. It is also central that the person being bribed implicitly agreed to abide by the rules of his government, organization, or legal system. We need to distinguish bribery from extortion, which is where an official requires payment to perform his otherwise normal duties Conclusion Global business is seemingly easy with the use of the Internet, but in the grand scheme of things, when you start looking at what is and is not acceptable or expected in foreign country, in terms of ethical business practices, one must use a great deal of caution. The moral challenge for businesses here in the United States it difficult enough when balancing one’s profit interests against the needs of employees, consumers, governments and special interest groups. The moral challenge is even more intense for multinational companies who need to live up to moral expectations both in the US and in host foreign countries. In developed countries, the moral expectations of the host country are as stringent as our own. With third world host countries, though, the moral expectations often more lax, and multinationals are tempted to lower their standards when situations permit. In this chapter we will look at three areas of moral concern for multinationals: bribery, influencing foreign governments, and exploiting third world countries. Resources http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-561836 http://ezinearticles.com/'Global-Business-and-Ethics&id=1102046 http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/vita/research/Busbook.htm