Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) operate as part of an economic atmosphere that stretch beyond country borders and into territories, sometimes with little or no governance. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the MNC to conduct business in accordance with a strict code of conduct, and to uphold the highest of ethical standards. Recent scrutiny from individuals and activist groups have led to MNC’s to respond by making a concerted effort to stop human rights violations, bribery, and pollution, all while raising awareness for other key issues (Pestre). As Americans we might think of these various practices of respecting human rights and minimizing pollution to be standard procedure and anything less to be unacceptable actions by a company.
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What is ethically correct in America may be completely different in another country, as not all countries have the same high ethical standards that business in the United States are expected to abide by. In some countries, using bribery to do business with a company is not considered an ethical issue at all, it is simply business as usual. In some cases it is expected, and if there is no bribe offered, then there is also no chance of doing business. If this is true, and a company based in America is doing business somewhere that bribery is unquestionably acceptable, is it okay for the American company to, as the saying goes, ‘do as the Roman’s do’? Furthermore, “The way firms manage their ethical issues is largely driven by external preoccupations. The stakeholder approach emphasises the role of customer, of government, of NGOs, of press, of rating agencies and of stockholders sometimes to a greater extent than the role of internal actors such as unions, or employees of subunits. Ethics is often considered as the corporate affairs managed by a staff expert in communication. The external discourse bound to external stakeholders could be different from the internal discourse addressed to subsidiary managers” (Pestre, …show more content…
Many major American companies, Enron, Worldcom, and Lehman Brothers to name a few, deliberately falsified financial documents to make their books appear significantly more stable than they actually were. While these ploys realized short term gains, once the real information was brought to light the companies, their investors, and clients lost billions of dollars, and some of the CEOs ended up in prison for fraud. Even as recently as a few weeks ago, Volkswagen has been found to have installed software in over 11 million vehicles that allowed them to cheat emissions tests in order to make them appear to pollute much less than they actually do. VW used these “low emission” vehicles to as a primary marketing component, claiming that their vehicles were safer for the environment. In reality, these VW vehicles produce over 40 times the pollutants allowed by vehicles in the U.S., and VW now has a major international recall underway as well as major lawsuits from all over the
What is ethically correct in America may be completely different in another country, as not all countries have the same high ethical standards that business in the United States are expected to abide by. In some countries, using bribery to do business with a company is not considered an ethical issue at all, it is simply business as usual. In some cases it is expected, and if there is no bribe offered, then there is also no chance of doing business. If this is true, and a company based in America is doing business somewhere that bribery is unquestionably acceptable, is it okay for the American company to, as the saying goes, ‘do as the Roman’s do’? Furthermore, “The way firms manage their ethical issues is largely driven by external preoccupations. The stakeholder approach emphasises the role of customer, of government, of NGOs, of press, of rating agencies and of stockholders sometimes to a greater extent than the role of internal actors such as unions, or employees of subunits. Ethics is often considered as the corporate affairs managed by a staff expert in communication. The external discourse bound to external stakeholders could be different from the internal discourse addressed to subsidiary managers” (Pestre, …show more content…
Many major American companies, Enron, Worldcom, and Lehman Brothers to name a few, deliberately falsified financial documents to make their books appear significantly more stable than they actually were. While these ploys realized short term gains, once the real information was brought to light the companies, their investors, and clients lost billions of dollars, and some of the CEOs ended up in prison for fraud. Even as recently as a few weeks ago, Volkswagen has been found to have installed software in over 11 million vehicles that allowed them to cheat emissions tests in order to make them appear to pollute much less than they actually do. VW used these “low emission” vehicles to as a primary marketing component, claiming that their vehicles were safer for the environment. In reality, these VW vehicles produce over 40 times the pollutants allowed by vehicles in the U.S., and VW now has a major international recall underway as well as major lawsuits from all over the