Understanding Ethics and its significance in relation to Bribery and Corruption
Ethics or moral philosophy is a division of philosophy involving defense, the recommendation of the concept of right and wrong conduct. It considers aesthetics along with the matters of value and comprises of the beliefs known as axiology. They seek to resolve the doubts of human ethics by explaining the ideas of good and evil, virtue and vice, right and immoral, impartiality and criminality. It is a field of intellectual inquiry. It is also related to the fields of descriptive ethics, , value theory and moral psychology (Aldulaimi, 2016).
Thus the main regions of study within ethics are meta-ethics, applied ethics and normative ethics. Meta-Ethics relate to the theoretical meanings and moral propositions and the determination of the true values. The applied ethics are concerned about what people are obligated to perform in a particular situation or in a specific domain of activity. Normative ethics are associated with defining the practical means of the moral course of action. So, in this essay, the various aspects of ethics would be described in the light of bribery and corruption. The Australian Legislation would also be illustrated and contrasted with the approach on the ethics of another country. It would be concluded on the basis of the above discussion that whether bribery and corruption are ethical or not (Gyoo et al.,2014).
For example, corruption distributes the resources and opportunities in ways which are unfair and ineffective. Thus it is the process which offers, promises, solicits and accepts the inducement of the activity which can be termed as illegal or it can be the breach of trust. It is the form of dishonesty or criminal activity which is undertaken by a person who is entrusted with the status of authority. It is done to acquire an illegal benefit. It may include the activities such as bribery and embezzlement (Clark & Brown, 2015).
Bribery is an act of giving or receiving something of value in exchange for some influence or activity in return. It can be described as the act of giving, offering, receiving or asking for something valuable in order to affect the activities of the officials or another human being in charge of legal or public duty. It is offered to others as a gift in order to influence their conduct. This can be products, money, preferment, rights in activity, privilege, emolument, objects of value, , property and privilege or a potential to affect the activity, the vote of a person in official capability (Nichols, 2012).
Examining Bribery and Corruption using Ethical Relativism
Thus, it is crucial to note that understanding the main concepts of morality, ethics, moral accountability and a personal hood is essential in order to explain the link between unethical behavior and bribery and corruption. Morality implies accountabilities from within. They are the standards followed for strict compulsory behavior and their importance to the attitude in life. The Greek word ethos is the origination of ethics which means a habit or custom. It is explained as the philosophy of morality and forms the part of philosophy (Cuervo-Cazurra, 2016).
The concept of ethics is associated with corruption and moral accountability as corruption and bribery are known to be unethical and inappropriate behaviors of the moral standards. Morality is a system of regulations and standards and it is probable to break them( Adeyemi, 2013). Ethics proves the utility of complying with the rules and regulations. It depicts that disobeying them can lead to loss of goodwill , duties and confidence in the companies where the managers work oversees specifically in the developing countries and involve themselves in bribery and corruption so that they can secure contracts and ensure that the commercial transactions occur in a timely fashion (Tunley et al.,2018).
The habits in which the people understand and associate with each other contributes towards the evolution and maintenance of personhood . Being an actual person is significant and it determines who sets boundaries. The persons who fall beyond the boundaries is considered to be a non-person. The concept of personhood claims that it is sacred and unique and each person has an ethical status and should be treated with respect. Personhood believes that people have an inner essence which continues to be in existence beyond human life (Gorsira et al., 2018).
In this context, bribery and corruption can be examined using ethical relativism.Ethical relativism can be referred to as a theory which explains that morality or ethical standards are based on the traits of the society. It applies that certain societies can bear certain behaviors while the others may consider them as unethical. With the reference to cultural relativism, it affects the attitude of various people for bribery and corruption. According to most of the cultures ,bribery and corruption are wrong while others may deny it( Tricker & Tricker, 2014).
However, it has been noted that the anti-discrimination policies and the rights of not to pay the bribes to the public services and the rights to be equally treated with concern and respect are not very distant from universal human rights in the world. For example people in different cultures especially those of developing countries seem to have the same ideas over the concept of corruption and bribery (Rothstein & Torsello, 2010). It has been found that people in the societies of developing countries have been taking a clear stand against corruption. Only some of the societies find these acts as not wrong at all and wrong but understandable (Runnels & Burton,2012).
Contrasting Bribery and Corruption from different ethical perspectives
Corruption is strongly associated with cultural variables like family ties, power distance and individualism.The decision to become corrupt is dependent upon the cultural norms and evaluation of risk and reward systems. In some of the cultures such as Brazil, corruption is a common parlance. Thus when people complaint about corrupted cultures, they possess the shared values, norms of people and beliefs. The idea of corrupted cultures is based upon the perceived exhilaration of greed and diminishing values of cultural ideals (Arnold, 2016).
Geert Hofstede created a measure for the power distance which implies that cultural tendency of a country towards the hierarchy. It expresses the degree to which the less powerful people accept and expect that the power is being disbursed in an unequal manner. The issue being discussed here is the implication of the corrupt cultures on the society.Thus people in societies where their intensity of power is exhibited admit a hierarchical order in which every person is treated equally and has a place and no further justification is needed. In societies with low power distance, people struggle to balance the disbursement of demand and power justifications for inequalities of power and prevalence of malpractices such as bribery and corruption ( Klitgaard, 2017).
Thus the cultural instincts can influence the personal perception of ethical standards and the cultural differences are likely to impact the issues such as corruption and bribery. For example, corruption in the third world countries is a common problem which is increasing the gap between rich and poor. The degree of human absurdity intensifies the disregard of morality, ethical codes of conduct and good conscience (Akanji, 2017).
The consequentialist theory is the important criterion for measurement of the morality of action and its results. The best-known theories of consequentialism are utilitarianism. It works towards accomplishing the largest quantity of good towards the highest number of individuals. For example: it can be easily disagreed about the possible best outcomes when a manager from country A is put in a situation where he has to consider bribe in a developing country B. He knows that bribing is considered immoral in his country but if he does not make bribery here, his company will go bankrupt and many people shall lose their jobs . So, in this case, the manager shall apply the faculties to the best of their capabilities so that the best possible outcomes can be calculated (Schreck, van Aaken & Donaldson,2013).
Comparing Australian legislation on bribery with other countries’ approaches
The deontological ethics claim that there is the universal moral law serving as a criterion associated with how the human being would behave in moral situations. The Greek word Deon means duty which suggests that it is the moral duty of every human being and the activities are judged on the basis of this law. So, if the manager from country A holds that some moral laws are right and if he is put into such situations where bribery is considered to be right, then it would be expected from the manager that he does not indulge himself in such acts because of his compliance with the moral law (Frederiksen, 2012).
If he does not comply with such practices, corrupt practices would be expected in domestic and international cases. However, it is important to consider that certain laws of a country can be different from the society at large, but they cannot change the conclusions as deontological laws consider morality to be universal( Zhou, Han & Wang, 2013).
As per the virtual ethics, the assessment of the morality of the act is analyzed by the person performing the act, rather than evaluating the act itself or its consequences. So, virtuous acts are performed by virtuous people. The main question being asked in virtue ethics is What kind of a persona manager is supposed to become instead of what kind of acts a manager should perform. Another question being asked is what is a virtue and what does it means to be a virtuous person and how a virtuous person recognized? So, if a manager is put in a situation where bribery is not considered to be wrong, then it is expected that he will not commit the act of bribery as he is a virtuous person (Pavlovi?, Mladi? & Buzar, 2016).
A manager would defuse the practice by adopting the policy of avoiding the conflict of interest. He must separate his personal interests from the business dealings. He must adopt the values of honesty, truthfulness and integrity. He must be fair which is the quality of being equitable, impartial and just (Nyuur, Amankwah?Amoah & Osabutey,2017).
So, he must not harm the consumers, clients and others through fraud, coercion and misrepresentation. He must adopt ethical practices by meeting the business obligations, maintaining confidence and avoiding undue pressure who behave unethically. He must not offer bribes as it is equivalent to instigating the other party for committing the unethical acts( Abbink et al.,2014).
As per Wyld & Forde (2018) in the year 1999, Australia gave her consent to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (the Anti-Bribery Convention). Afterward, Anti Bribery Convention Criminal Code Act 1995(Cth) (the Criminal Code) was adopted by Australia. It was amended to prohibit bribery from a foreign public official. The Criminal Code comprises of the offenses of domestic bribery and foreign bribery against the Commonwealth.
A number of steps have been taken by Australia for meeting its duties as per Convention by forbidding the corruption and bribery of the foreign officials. The provisions of Criminal Code have been strengthened and comprises of the requirements of a new strict liability corporate offense through the prevention of the foreign bribery and increased effectiveness of whistleblowing laws. It has been an actively participating in the Asia –Pacific region for motivating the anti-corruption initiatives (McCarthy et al., 2012).
In this regard, it has also formulated an interagency National Fraud and Anti –Corruption Centre which was controlled by AFP besides the involvement of Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) ,Australian Tax Office (ATO) , Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DAFT), Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and Australian Customs and Border Protection Service(Chavis, 2013).
In this context, Brazil has also applied the Brazilian Clean Company Act 2014(Law No. 12846) which holds the corporations answerable for the unethical acts of their workers and levies severe charges for those crimes. It means that the company is held liable without its fault. Stricter civil and administrative liabilities are imposed but there are no criminal liabilities for the companies. It implies that the Brazilian laws are lenient as compared to Australian legislation on corruption and bribery (Hunt & Laszlo, 2012).
Financing, paying or subsidizing the performance of a prohibited act constitutes of prohibited conduct .It comprises of fraud in public procurement, ringing of a bid and paying bribery to or by the public or foreign officials of Brazil (Mathenge, 2012). It penalizes the companies with fines up to 20% of their gross revenue of the last year or it may result into suspension and dissolution of the company. The prosecutors are not required to prove the representatives of the company guilty and the companies are not even provided a legal defense for implementing proper procedures so that corrupt acts can be prevented GAN Integrity Inc(2018). So, it can be said that the legislation of Australia are far more strict as compared to those of Brazil (?eker & Yang, 2014).
Hence to conclude this discussion it can be said that bribery and corruption can have severe impacts on business. It is quite unethical and can harm the reputation of the company and it can pose a threat to its financial standing. It has to pay legal costs. So there are certain principles to be followed by a company to combat this evil.The procedures to prevent bribery should be proportionate to the size of the company. This comprises of anti-bribery policies, training for the staff and rules which the company must abide( Seker & Yang, 2012).
In this regard, a whistleblowing helpline should be available to all the employees and they should be motivated to use the same when needed. Receipts should be demanded when the payments are made to any of the vendors and suppliers. The employees should not accept cash payments and staff, agents and contractors should be trained to implement the anti-bribery measures and procedures. All the policies should be transparent, easy to comprehend, accessible and efficiently implemented throughout the company (Fungá?ová, Kochanova & Weill, 2015).
In this regard, the commitment of the top level managers should be required. They need to show zero level tolerance power for corruption and bribery so that the employees can adopt this approach and are less inclined towards the adoption of unethical practices. The risk assessment of the bribery and corruption should be executed so that a member receiving bribery should also be held equally responsible. Depending upon the nature of industry the company is engaged, the risks of bribery and corruption may differ. It also depends upon the developing country the manager is employed in the deal with (Kemp, 2014).
I believe that the impacts of corruption on societies can be severe. It is an obstacle to democracy and the rule of law. It reduces the wealth of the country, often diverting the money into the pockets of the corrupt bureaucrats. It imbalances the method in which business is executed thereby permitting those who practice dishonesty to win. Corruption is a victimless crime because it takes wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. It costs freedom of the people, their health, rights and lives. So, creating a culture which influences the action of the employees and their decision making and behavior can be a challenging process and it requires resources, sensitivity and patience.
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