Global Business and Ethics

With the advent of the Internet, everything from personal relationships to the business has become 'global' for all purposes. Today, you can talk to people around the world as easily as if you were talking to your neighbor. Businesses can exchange documents of all kinds at the touch of a button - without having to wait days, weeks and often for documents to be delivered by hand. There are global, and this has had a profound effect in the area of ​​business ethics.

What we must realize is that what can be considered ethical in our country is not necessarily regarded as ethical in another country. This often makes it rather difficult to conduct global business. At one time, because we did not have internet, it was more of a question not to be disrespectful to another accident of customs and traditions. However, today, there's more at stake. It is also necessary not to step on a whole new business - or countries - Code of Ethics, as he remains faithful to your own business or ethical code of the country.

The first step is to understand the commercial traditions and customs of the country that the company is resident in hopes they will do that for you, making an effort to understand the traditions and customs business. Next, we need a way to communicate clearly. In this area of ​​the global market, hiring the services of a talented performer is indispensable. Need to know clearly what they say, and they need to know what you are saying as well. Do not depend on your one semester of a foreign language in high school to get through this.
Global business also has a profound effect on your employees. For example, if you do business with a foreign country that maintains normal business hours only - in their time zone - one or more of your employees must be available for phone calls and things like that, when it is convenient for foreign companies. We expect employees to be in the office to field calls or making these teleconferences at midnight, and waiting for them to clock in a light early the next morning? This is not very ethical.

Another industry that has become a growing concern when it comes to global business and ethics are reporting income from foreign countries. If your company makes a sale to a company in Canada, for example, that the sale will not be reported to the IRS in the U.S. by the company that made the sale or the Government of Canada. It is not for anyone's standards, it is unethical to report that income to the IRS alone.

In many countries, bribing officials is a part of doing business. However, this does not make ethical practice, and experts advise entrepreneurs to educate all their employees that such practices will not be tolerated in the conduct of global business - or even in conducting business in their country.

Global Business is apparently easy with the use of the Internet, but in the grand scheme of things, when you start looking at what is and is not acceptable or expected in a foreign country, in terms of ethical business practices, you should use a large amount of caution....