Over the last half decade, businesses have evolved tremendously. Their productivity has improved, new production areas have appeared, borders between countries have opened up and with this, new problems have also arisen.
As companies grow in size and importance, so does the criticism and the attacks that are directed towards them. In order to respond to them, social responsibility programs have been put into place and money spent on advertising these programs and how they behave for the social good. "In the 1960's... It became quickly apparent to everyone, however, that the pursuit of financial gain had to take place within the laws of the land" Caroll, A . This is still true today, even more so due to the fact that information travels so fast nowadays that, any misstep or any error made by corporations can be unveiled and is available to everyone instantly. Social responsibility and behaving ethically is now part of being a multinational company.
The intention of this assignment is to identify and assess why it can be difficult for the multinational firm to behave ethically. In order to do so, we will look at some of the main ethical issues that have been observed over the past years.
[...] Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany. [8] Boggan, S. 20th October 2001. The Independant 'We Blew It' Nike Admits to Mistakes Over Child Labor. [9] Mervin, J. BBC News. Counting the cost of the BP disaster one year on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13120605 [10] 12th March 2010. BBC News. China warns Google to comply with censorship laws. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8564822.stm [11] Jenkins, R. (2001). Corporate codes of conduct self regulation in a global economy. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. [12] Lush Website. https://phoenix.lush.co.uk/our-values/campaigns [13] Innocent Website. [...]
[...] It's a judgment multinational firms have to make. Are the opportunities the market offers too great to afford not trying to conquer it or will the measures it will be forced to take in order to do so be too damaging ethically for my company's image? Conclusion As we've seen, multinational companies are faced with many different problems when searching to invest in new countries. On certain occasions these problems can be resolved by operating slight adjustments in order to take into account the differences in market needs but in other cases, strategic decisions have to be made to calculate what would be more damaging for the company: not complying with certain code of ethics and risk damaging its image or aiming to be as ethical as possible. [...]
[...] Corporate codes of conduct self regulation in a global economy. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. - Leigh, D and Evans, R. 07th June 2007. BAE accused of secretly paying £1bn to Saudi prince. The Guardian. - Mervin, J. BBC News. Counting the cost of the BP disaster one year on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13120605 - Mueller, B. Reflections of Culture: An Analysis of Japanese and American Advertising Appeals. - PAGE, N. (2000). Jeddah: modern city that's as old as Eve, Sunday Business. [...]
[...] The intention of this assignment is to identify and assess why it can be difficult for the multinational firm to behave ethically. In order to do so, we will look at some of the main ethical issues that have been observed over the past years. Problems due to the differences that exist in ethics in countries and regions all over the globe, problems relating to politics and country regulations and those related to the difficulties that exist in satisfying the several different stakeholders in a company. [...]
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