Ethical and Social Concerns in Global Business Essay

The need of ethics in the business world is superlative and global as new trends and issues arise daily which may create an important burden to business entities and end-consumers. There is therefore a need for proper ethical behavior in organizations for smooth operations within the business entities. Morf (1999:265) believes: †Ethics is the moral principle that individuals inject into their decision-making process and that helps temper the last outcome to conform to the norms of their society. † Again, ethical principles have the very profound function of making behavior very predictable (Mahdavi, 2003). Businesses need to come to grips with the legal and moral atmosphere in which they operate. The various ethical issues in global business that have imparted variously in the Kenyan Economy include the following: 1) Corruption and bribery; corruption and bribery is one of the menace that has seen Kenya lag behind in terms of development. It is often claimed that in 1963, when Kenya acquired its independence from the colonial rule, it was at par with countries like South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore among others, in terms of development. However, the above mentioned countries have grown to be giant economies while Kenya is still struggling at grassroots with take-off strategies. Kenya has had major scandals of corruption which include The Goldenberg scandal, The Anglo leasing among others, which involved ‘white elephant’ projects that looted the government of major funds. The unethical act is still rampant in the country even after the establishment of the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission to help curb the vice. ) Unfair Pricing; This includes the unfair differential pricing, improper invoicing –where the buyer requests for a price other than the actual price paid, pricing to outdo local competition, dumping commodities at prices below the home country prices and pricing practices that are permitted in the host country but against the law in the home country such (e. g. price fixing agreements). Unfair pricing is notable in the Kenyan economy where the prices of oil are inflated by the oil selling companies. The presence of the cheap ‘mitumba’ clothes in Kenya have contributed among other things to the death of the textile industry in Kenya which equally leads to unemployment oflabour and reduced taxes for the government. 3) Illegal/immoral activities in the host country; practices such as pollution of the environment, the maintenance of unsafe working conditions, the violation of intellectual rights laws in product/technology copying where the protection of patents, trademarks and copyrights is at stake. This has in particular affected to a degree the Kenyan music industry where pirating is rampant. 4) Involvement in political affairs; where political personnel get actively engaged in a country’s normal marketing operations and engage in unjust practices such as illegal technology transfers. The Kenyan government has recently handled claims where top political officers are reported to have liaised with other governments to defraud the state. These include the sale of maize to Sudan and the purchase of government land at china. ) Questionable commissions paid to channel members; where unreasonably high commissions are paid to sales agents, middlemen, consultants and import officials as fees, there is a reason to raise eyebrows. This is an unethical practice that is present especially in the less developed and developing countries. In Kenya, import officers are known as perpetrators to this menace. 6) Dumping; I since considered dumping as an unethical practice of its own since it is present in Kenya. Dumping is where substandard products are sold cheaply to a country where the use of the product in the manufacturing country is outlawed, used for other specified purposes or declared unfit for human consumption. For instance, The purchase of contaminated maize recently by the Kenya government from South Africa, is one of the cases that identifies Kenya as one of the terminals of dumped goods among other things which include the dominance of vague China made goods in the Kenyan market. This includes hardware materials, home appliances and the recently noted turnover of mobile phones which hardly last for a month.