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Unit 13: GHRM Trends and Future Challenges

Bribery involves the payment of agents to do things that are inconsistent with the purpose of Notes
their position or office in order to gain an unfair advantage. It can be distinguished from so-
called gifts and ‘facilitating’ or ‘grease’ payments. The latter are payments to motivate agents to
complete a task they would routinely do in the normal course of their duties. Bribery undermines
equity, efficiency and integrity in the public service, undercuts public confidence in markets and
aid programmes, adds to the cost of products and may affect the safety and economic well-being
of the general public.
1. Internationally, the movement to criminalise the practice of bribery was started when in
1977, the USA enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to prohibit US-based
firms and US nationals from making bribery payments to foreign government officials.
Payments to agents violate the Act if it is known that the agent will use those payments to
bribe a government official. The Act was amended in 1988 to permit ‘facilitating’ payments
but mandates record-keeping provisions to help ensure that those payments are not
disguised as entertainment or business expenses.
2. In December 1996, the UN adopted the United Nations Declaration against Corruption
and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions, which committed UN members to
criminalise bribery and deny tax deductibility for bribes. A year later, the Declaration was
endorsed by 30 member nations and four non-member nations of the OECD adopting the
Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business
Transactions (OECD) Convention.

Did u know? Cultural Imperialism is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating,
or artificially injecting the culture of one society into another. It can take the form of an
active, formal policy or a general attitude.
13.2.4 MNC – Global and Good Corporate Citizen

A global world is an interconnected world. It presents a critical challenge to identify common
ethical values that underline cultural, religious and philosophical differences. While there are
important differences between Western and Eastern philosophical traditions, they share four
fundamental core human values:
1. Good citizenship

2. Respect for human dignity
3. Respect for basic rights
4. Equity

Applications of core human values to specific duties of multinationals include the adoption of
adequate workplace and environmental health and safety standards, the payment of basic living
wages, equal employment opportunity, refraining from the use of child labour, providing basic
employee training and education, and allowing workers to organise and form unions.
The regulation of foreign investment is another area that has some implications for ethics and
social responsibility. Many nations and their governments have disapproved the ethics of MNCs
gaining an economic foothold and then taking the resources and profits back home. These
concerns have led to regulation.
In order to be accepted as a good corporate citizen in the local community, a subsidiary must be
prepared to abide by both the word and spirit of local laws. This is because the media is
particularly harsh with them.

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