Moral challenges for business in the United States are difficult enough when you consider the balancing profit interests against the needs of consumers, employees, governments and special interest groups. Multinational corporations mainly refer to large corporations based in Western Europe, North America, and Japan who operate manufacturing and other business facilities in underdeveloped countries.These large global companies exert enormous economic, technological, political, environmental, and cultural power around the world. The manufacturing company with the largest assets in the year 1994 was General Motors with $198.5 billion in total assets.This figure is larger than the gross domestic product of all but a dozen or so countries of the world. The problems arise when these corporations begin to take advantage of the lax moral expectations of these lesser developed countries. Multinational Corporations are often accused of exploiting resources and taking advantage of labor forces in lesser developed countries. Chemical industries take advantage of lax safety regulations, which can result in a disaster. Mining companies exploit the wealth of the country for a few rich land owners. Financial institutions rarely hire local people, yet they benefit by bringing in local money. Agriculture businesses use the best land to grow crops for export, which reduces the amount of land the locals can use to grow their own crops. The manufacturing and service industries have introduced poverty to many areas by paying wages that don't even meet a persons "basic needs".
In 1996 talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford was accused of promoting the use of sweatshops in Honduras with a clothing line she endorsed sold by Wal-Mart. Charges that...
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...od deal of power and can influence a poor country's decisions in various ways. Multinational companies should have a responsibility to promote the protection of human rights. In an increasingly globalized world economy, their decisions and actions impact directly the government policy and the realization of human rights. There is a universal Declaration of Human Rights that calls on "every individual and every organ of society" to play its part in securing universal observance of human rights. All companies should have some kind of responsibility to respect human rights in their on operations. Their employees and other people who are affected by a companies actions are entitled to rights such as freedom discrimnination, the right to life and security, freedom from slavery, freedom of association, including the right to form trade unions, and fair working conditions.
The mere idea of sweatshops, let alone their existence, seems cruel and unusual to people like us, especially in today's day and age. After all, in sweatshops "workers are subject to extreme exploitation. This includes... (not) enabling workers to cover ...
With the continuous development and progress of society, globalization gradually becomes the main trend toward the development within the company. Therefore, correct understanding of a multinational company becomes extremely important. This research will introduce a multinational company in accordance with the three thesis from the perspective of comprehensively and objectively. It is helpful to understand multinational companies
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
There has been major controversy with multinational corporations employing foreign workers at very low wages for punishing hours. Working in excruciating conditions in underdeveloped countries only to manufacture export goods for Western consumers is usually the only option for foreign workers attempting to support themselves and or their family. In this essay, I will argue that any multinational corporation that is operating in a developing country must pay their employee’s not only a living wage but also provide them with safe working conditions. Exploiting foreign workers wages and having them operate in poor conditions will shine a negative light on these multinational corporations, which will damage their reputation. Multinational corporations can be viewed as ethically and morally just in some instances by adding a few more cents to the employee’s wage to obtain a living wage and further, providing the workers with a safe and healthy work environment.
The lack of ethics concerning global issues can be found in the sweatshops of underdeveloped and third world countries. This issue has developed from the indiscretion of industries and employers. Industries treat their employees poorly; moreover, employees are subjected to extremely poor working conditions, poverty wages, and little to no benefits or union representation. The competition of industries has created these oppressive practices. According to research done by Jay Mandle at Cambridge, in countries such as Bangladesh, sweatshop workers are paid only 13 cents per hour in US money. These workers are subjected to extremely overpopulated sweatshops, being that an astounding 3.5 million workers make up the workforce of 4,825
Most sweatshops have been known to be unlawful, but yet it doesn’t stop them to still be around today. Workers working in sweatshops are known to be getting paid small amount of money while working long tiring shifts, sometimes without being allowed to take a break. Many corporations have their products produce in third-world countries such as Guatemala, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. where it costs them less to produce goods since they are paying their workers almost nothing. It is believed that it
When people think of a sweatshop, images of people assembling items in a hot and crowded factory somewhere in a “Third World” country tend to come to mind. However, the first few sweatshops were located in both New York and England, becoming established in the late 1800’s. The term “sweatshop” originated from the term “sweating”, which described the contractual agreements between workers and designers to produce clothing. In these workshops, there was a “sweater”, an individual who monitored garment making (“Origins Of Sweatshops”, 2017). The term sweatshop is more so currently used to describe the working conditions rather than the type of workplace itself. Even back then, these workplaces were unsanitary, were sources of safety hazards and extremely crowded. Throughout the years, poor people and immigrants filled up the sweatshops in desperate search for work. This eventually spread beyond the United States and U.K., and became a commonplace practice in developing countries ruled by dictators. With this spread quickly came the employment of child workers, especially in places such as Indonesia, and India. Like the adults, they are subject to treatment that violates their human rights. They are left without protection from any other adults, making them more susceptible to abuse. Despite this, major corporations and brands such as Wal-Mart, Adidas, Aldo, Victoria’s Secret, Urban Outfitters and so on use sweatshops for affordable labor. One of the more prominent cases is the incident involving Kathy Lee Gifford and Wal-Mart, in which both Gifford and Wal-Mart “suffered as a result of the negative press surrounding the manufacturing of Gifford’s clothing line distributed by Wal-Mart” (Radin & Calkins). Gifford’s clothing was produced in a factory in Honduras, where female workers constantly suffered “cruel and inhumane treatment” (Radin &
Multinational enterprises date back to the era of merchant-adventurers, when the Dutch East India Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company traversed the world to extract resources and agricultural products from colonies (Gilpin 278-79). While contemporary multinational corporations (MNCs) do not command the armies and territories their colonial counterparts did, they are nevertheless highly influential actors in today’s increasingly globalized world.
Multinational corporations are another type of nongovernmental actor and are private businesses headquartered in one state that invest and operate extensively in other countries. These transnational corporations or international corporations have a lot of controversy surrounding them. Multinational companies try to avoid the restrictions government puts in place by doing business in that country. Multinational corporations use the corrupt government in the lesser developed countries to avoid the restrictions that are put in place. These governments are offered bribes in exchange for their cooperation. They are in business to make profit, and they do so by minimizing the cost of the factors they use in production, both the primary factors, land, labor and capital and secondary factors such as taxes and regulations.
The next, major international business issue is human rights. In many nations today basic human rights are not respected. In much of the developed world are basics rights are taken for granted such as freedom of speech, or freedom of movement. It is often questioned by the international business world if we should...
The role that globalization plays in spreading and promoting human rights and democracy is a subject that is capable spurring great debate. Human rights are to be seen as the standards that gives any human walking the earth regardless of any differences equal privileges. The United Nations goes a step further and defines human rights as,
First of all globalization has led to exploitation of labor. We can’t ignore the fact that ethical aspects of international business deserve special attention. Corruption and engaging in illegal practice to make greater profit is a source of continuing controversy. Sometimes companies go international and move their production to foreign countries so they could employ workers for long hours, at low wages and in poor working conditions (sweat shops). They are also using child labor, the employment of children to a full time work that can be otherwise done by adults all that so they could get out of their responsibility towards their workers by avoiding paying them national insurance …When these multinational firms go abroad they forget all about principles and about human beings and their rights, according to Kent, J., Kinetz, E. & Whehrfritz, G. (2008/March24). Newsweek. Bottom of the barrel. “The dark side of globalization: a vast work force trapped in conditions that verge on slavery”, David, P. Falling of The Edge, Travels through the Dark Heart of Globalization..Nov 2008. (p62) also agrees with them when he explained his concerns about Chinese and Indians t...
Mayer, Robert. "Sweatshops, Exploitation, and Moral Responsibility." Journal of Social Philosophy 38.4 (2007): 605-619.Wiley Online Library. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.
Shah, A. (2006, May 28). Corporations and Worker's Rights. - Global Issues. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.globalissues.org/article/57/corporations-and-workers-rights
Nowadays, business is set in a global environment. Companies not only regard their locations or primary market bases, but also consider the rest of the world. In this context, more and more companies start to run multinational business in various parts of the world. In this essay, companies which run multinational business are to be characterized as multinational companies'. By following the globalization campaign, multinational companies' supply chains can be enriched, high costs work force can be transformed and potential markets can be expanded. Consequentially, competitive advantages of companies can be strengthened in a global market. Otherwise, some problems are met in the changed environments in foreign countries at the same time. The changed environments can be divided into four main aspects, namely, cultural environment, legal environment, economic environment and political system problems. All the changed environments make problems to multinational companies. In particular, problems which are caused by changed culture environment are the most serious aspect of running a multinational business. This essay will discuss these problems and give some suggestions to solve them.