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Culture norms impact on society
Ethics in the corporate world
Ethics and corporate performance
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According to Manuel Velasquez, multinational corporations are free from moral obligations due to the absence of a single governing body in international business. The cultural and social differences among nations create a complex business environment in which multinational corporations may reject individuals’ values and beliefs in order to gain a competitive advantage in the global market. He argues that individual members of an organization have a low and temporary impact on a company as a whole, because they are transient and their influence is limited by the company’s goals and objectives. Velasquez states that the principles of morality are based on individual’s values and beliefs and therefore should not apply to international business affairs, bearing in mind the complex diversity of a global market. The competitive nature of the global market creates a state in which morality could be overlooked for business opportunities. A multinational company must pursuit competitive advantages in the global market in order to achieve its primary objectives. The absence of a governing b...
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
We will protect the organization’s assets. This includes tangible assets such as the building, vehicles, and equipment. It is equally important to protect intangible assets such as copyrights, information, and computer programs.
“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened” (Kennedy, 1963). Continuous improvements in technology capabilities have provided companies with tools to more easily conduct business on a global scale. However, when conducting business with different cultures, you risk different ethical standards. Companies should be accountable for ensuring their product or services can be received by the consumer in good conscience, void of human ethics violations, regardless of where the product or service originates; and consumers should not patronize companies that cannot ensure this trust.
After news of the scandal of Enron, one of the hottest items on e-Bay was a 64-page copy of Enron’s corporate code of ethics. One seller/former employee proclaimed it had “never been opened.” In the forward Kenneth L. Lay, CEO of Enron stated, “We want to be proud of Enron and to know that it enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty and that it is respected (Enron 2).” For a company with such an extensive code of ethics and a CEO who seemed to want the company to be respected for that, there are still so many unanswered questions of what exactly went wrong. I believe that simply having a solid and thorough code of ethics alone does not prevent a company from acting unethically when given the right opportunity.
Business ethics simply can be defined as the application of business values in the business practice of a company (Seawell 2010, p. 2). For a multinational company, business ethics is one of the critical aspects need to be taken into account in business decision-making processes. Failure to give attention on ethics may bring consequences on company’s reputation (Meyer & Jebe 2010, p. 159). The company is expected not only to pursue its own profits but also contributing to the environmental and social welfare of the community where it operates (Svensson & Wood 2008, p. 308).
Throughout the course of day-to-day business life, the business professionals come in contact with quite a sum of ethical dilemmas. There are various ways to handle these ethical dilemmas, but failure to follow the appropriate manner could result in an unethical outcome. The ethical guides related to the book definitely help students develop an ethical character that is sure to stand out for highly ethical companies. In addition, there are companies that test how ethical applicants are before hiring them, this in turn makes getting the job more difficult and costly. However, despite the high cost and difficulty said companies stay firm to ethics, guaranteeing they get top-of-the-line employees who will act in an ethical manner. Ethics is defined
Today, many companies enter the global market, and some companies have become extremely successful in the global marketplace and others still struggling. In Theodore Levitt’s article “The Globalization of Markets”, he states that a well managed corporation focuses on selling standardized products with high quality and low priced instead of focuses on selling on customized products with high cost. Levitt defines the differences between multinational corporation and global corporation, and adopts many specific examples to proves his view. He defines the multinational corporation who operates in many countries and adjust its product based on the taste of specific region. This will result in a high cost to produce the product because company have to input more resource into each individual product. However, global corporation sells similar product worldwide at relative low cost. According to Levitt, the cultural differences are becoming more and more “homogenized”; therefore, becoming a global corporation will lead to the successful of the company in the global market.
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.
Large corporations have been attempting to find a balance between the traditional hierarchical structure and the flexible local entrepreneurial structure for many years. Increasing global competition has made it critical that multinational enterprises be both globally integrated and locally responsive at the same time (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1988). Sohn & Paik (2004) describe the efforts of Toshiba to achieve a hybrid of centralized control and localized autonomy. Irrespective of the structure chosen, corporations can all be placed somewhere along the continuum between centralized and decentralized management. A centralized structure will be slower to respond to changing market conditions but provides stability and control. A decentralized structure provides autonomy for local businesses to make their own decisions quickly, ; however, the decisions may not align with the parent organizations' strategic objectives and ethics. Many business decisions involve conflict between making money and ethical treatment of employees, customers, and the environment. Centrally managed organizations are more likely to align decisions with a universal corporate code of conduct. Autonomous subsidiaries will make decisions that are reflective of the local cultural values. The risk to the parent organization is that some of these decisions may severely conflict with shareholder values. Treatment of women, children, and respect for the environment are some areas where regional differences exist.
In recent decades, the process of globalization has accelerated and the world economy has become increasingly interdependent. The rise in the number of businesses that extensively operate in more than one foreign country, which is known as multinational corporations, plays an important role in the ongoing procedure of globalization. The United Nations has reported that multinational corporations hold one-third of world’s productive assets and control 70 percent of world trade (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). As there is a considerable growth in international businesses, worldwide economy is becoming more highly competitive. The global economy not only offers great opportunities for multinational enterprises but also on the other hand, creates many difficulties for them. Therefore, success in the large-scale economy requires a number of elements. One of the major determinants is dependent on global managers. In the operation of organizations, managers may encounter different international management challenges that restrict their business development. These challenges often include issues associated with the host countries, the global workforce diversity management, management across cultures, difficulties in competitive global business environment as well as in the process of global planning and controlling. This essay is going to discuss the above international management challenges in a broad sense and giving illustration in aspects of each challenge.
Corporate culture is the shared values and meanings that members hold in common and that are practiced by an organization’s leaders. Corporate culture is a powerful force that affects individuals in very real ways. In this paper I will explain the concept of corporate culture, apply the concept towards my employer, and analyze the validity of this concept. Research As Sackmann's Iceberg model demonstrates, culture is a series of visible and invisible characteristics that influence the behavior of members of organizations. Organizational and corporate cultures are formal and informal. They can be studied by observation, by listening and interacting with people in the culture, by reading what the company says about its own culture, by understanding career path progressions, and by observing stories about the company. As R. Solomon stated, “Corporate culture is related to ethics through the values and leadership styles that the leaders practice; the company model, the rituals and symbols that organizations value, and the way organizational executives and members communicate among themselves and with stakeholders. As a culture, the corporation defines not only jobs and roles; it also sets goals and establishes what counts as success” (Solomon, 1997, p.138). Corporate values are used to define corporate culture and drive operations found in “strong” corporate cultures. Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Bonar Group, the engineering firm I work for, all exemplify “strong” cultures. They all have a shared philosophy, they value the importance of people, they all have heroes that symbolize the success of the company, and they celebrate rituals, which provide opportunities for caring and sharing, for developing a spiri...
A company's code of ethics is very important to establishing the expectations and quality of its brand. The code of ethics are concrete expectations for employee behavior, accountability and communicates the ethical policy of a company to its partners and clients. A good business practice is to have sound ethics. Having good ethical practice is knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing what the right thing is. Though good ethical behavior is something that should be done automatically, a company needs to have a set of rules in place that holds everyone accountable. Over the last twenty years, the country has been bombarded with company scandals and unethical behavior; though morally wrong, the punishment does not fit the crime. The punishments have been overkill. A murderer, rapist, or child molester commits violent crimes and potentially is out of jail in 10 - 20 years. The CEO’s that commit white collar crime receive 25 years to life; this paper will discuss how this punishment for committing nonviolent crimes, such as breaching a company’s code of ethics, are disproportionate to violent crimes that plague the country today.
In conclusion, companies that seek to integrate into global markets usually encounter several problems because of the effect of globalization on business practices. The challenges originating from such integration is attributed to the differences in cultures in various societies across the globe. As evident in Google’s dilemma in China, there is no single set of universal ethics that are applicable to all settings and societies across the globe. Companies such as Google need to develop varying ethical standards that are relevant and appropriate to various nations and cultures in the world. This would enable the companies that are integrating into global markets to avoid ethical issues while maintaining effective business practices.
There are a number of issues that affect international business ethics. They include employment practices, human rights, environmental regulations, corruption, and moral obligation of multinational companies. Employment practice refers to the working conditions an employee must work under. This can be very difficult to gauge, because many times the working conditions of a host nation are inferior to those in an organizations home nation. Many organizations have had to fight with these regulations. A good example of this in the trouble Nike found themselves in during the 1990s. There were a number of news reports released about the working conditions of most of its subcontractors were very poor . The Nike Company was not breaking any laws but it did bring into question the ethics of using a sweatshop. After this incident it left a number of questions for the international marketplace. In recent years many companies have cut ties with organizations that use unsafe and unfair labor practice.
Firstly, multinational corporations are not something new in this 21st century. There are more and more international corporation as people try to boost the process of globalization. The development of these multinational corporations depends on the management of the owners. Transnational strategy is needed in order to operate such a big system of companies. Every nation in this system has to be managed thoroughly in order to help running the corporation, as well as to keep the system as one consistent body of business. Managers also find it important to look for opportunitie...