How is a manager operating abroad to know what is the right decision when faced with questionable or unfamiliar circumstances of doing business? The first line of defense is to consult the laws of both the home and the host countries, such as the FCPA. If any of those laws would be violated, then you, the manager, must look to some other way to complete the business transaction or withdraw altogether. Secondly, you could consult the International Codes of conduct for MNEs, as shown in ExIibit 2-2. These are broad and cover various areas of social responsibility and ethical behavior; however, while they are comprehensive, many issues are subject to interpretation.
If legal consultation does not provide you with a clear answer about what to do, you should consult the company's code of ethics (if there is one). You, as the manager, should realize that you are not alone in making these kinds of decisions; it is also the responsibility of the company to provide guidelines for the actions and decisions made by its employees. In addition, you are not the first, and certainly not the last, to be faced with this kind of situation. This also allows for a collective experience in the company about what kinds of decisions your colleagues typically make in various circumstances. Those norms or expectations (assuming they are honorable) can supplement the code of ethics or substitute for the lack of a formal code. If your intended action runs contrary to the norms or the formal code, then discontinue that plan. If you are still unsure of what to do, you have the right and the obligation to consult your superiors. Unfortunately, often the situation is not that clear cut, or your boss will tell you to use your own judgement. Sometimes your superiors back at the home office just want you to complete the transaction to the benefit of the company, and don't want to be involved in what you have to do to get the deal done. It is at this point that, if your dilemma continues, you must fall back to your own moral code of ethics. One way to consider the dilemma is to ask yourself what are the rights of the various stakeholders involved (see Exhibit 2-2. and how should you weigh those rights? First, does the proposed action (rigged contract bid, bribe, etc.) harm anyone? What are the likely consequences of your decision both in te -short run and in the long run? Who would benefit from your contemplated action? What are the benefits to some versus potential harm to others? In the case of a rigged contract bid through briber for example, people are put at a disadvantage, especially over the long term with a pattern of this behavior. This is because if competition is unfair, not only are your competitors harmed by losing the bid, but also the consumers of the products or services are harmed because they will pay more to attain them than they would under an efficient market system.
In the end, you have to follow your own conscience and decide where to draw the line in the sand in order to operate with integrity-otherwise the line moves further and further away with each transgression. In addition, what can start with a small bribe or cover-up (a matter of personal ethics) can, over time and in the aggregate of many people covering up, result in a situation of a truly negligent, and perhaps criminal, stance toward social responsibility to society as that revealed by investigations of the tobacco industry in the United States. Indeed, executives are increasingly being held personally and criminally accountable for their decisions; this is true even for people operating on the board of directors of a company.
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