Unethical Behaviour Case Study

2.2. Unethical Behaviour

KI as a New Zealand company, may have a high ethical standard for the business practice. There are three types of ethical conflicts when doing business with the host countries, including pressures on individuals to violate personal norms; inconsistent cultural norms; host country versus home country interests and values (DeGeorge, 1993). Therefore, KI may decentralized the manage process to lower the threat of conflicts. The local management will then have cross-cultural differences regarding ethics (Buller & McEvoy, 1999). Although the media did not mention any issues other than child labour, bribery and workplace safety, sweatshops concerns may still exist. Most MNCs do not concern the welfare of workers in the overseas

It would also cause economic losses for the country, therefore, reducing the rate of accidents could potentially save the country billions annually (Hayes et al, 1998). It is important for companies to create safe workplace to build the positive workers’ perceptions of safety on their jobs (Hayes et al, 1998). According to the research, less accidents tend to occur if employees perceive their jobs safe; and higher accident rate if they do not (Harrell, 1990). Since KI has decentralized the management process, it may not have a clear view of the working environment and conditions for the workers among the subsidiaries. KI also may not know the workers’ perceptions on the work safety. It is critical for KI’s management to conduct series of measurement on the workers’ perceptions of workplace safety first and embrace new provisions of workplace safety into the company code. In order to so, the management may need to understand how the workers feel and think based on the results. In additional, KI may require compliance and commitment from its subcontractors for the new workplace safety practice, which would benefit both the MNCs and