Global Business and Ethics Paper
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- Date Submitted: 03/19/2010 08:15 PM
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Global Business and Ethics Paper
As former third world countries like China and India continue to grow and become major players in the global marketplace ethical dilemmas also continue to grow. While our media focuses on the state of our economy and on the deteriorating jobs market here at home we have lost focus on the fact that we live in a global economy and that many of the jobs we have lost here have gone overseas. Many of these jobs have gone to countries such as China and India where the hours are long and the wages are low. The governments in these countries are desperate for these jobs and for foreign investors to help their growing economies and for these reasons many times the government restrictions are kept at a minimum. Unfortunately many of the foreign companies are all too eager to exploit the cheap labor they have found and that is when the ethical dilemmas arise.
Many companies have their headquarters in the United States, but
manufacturing facilities in other countries. Ethical dilemmas might arise if, for example, job conditions that are considered normal in the manufacturing country conflict with labor standards in the United States. A bigger danger can arise when a US corporation sets up manufacturing operations in a third world country and due to the lower expectations or less stringent regulations, lower standards are practiced there. An excellent example is the Bhopal chemical plant disaster in India when Union Carbide Co., an American company, allowed the plant there to deteriorate in conditions until disaster struck killing thousands and left hundreds of thousands affected.
During the night of December 2, 1984 large amounts of water entered a tank containing a chemical known as MIC. The reaction of the water and the chemical caused the temperature within the tank to increase to over 200 degrees Celsius, which in turn raised the pressure to a level the tank was not designed to withstand. This forced emergency venting of the...
As former third world countries like China and India continue to grow and become major players in the global marketplace ethical dilemmas also continue to grow. While our media focuses on the state of our economy and on the deteriorating jobs market here at home we have lost focus on the fact that we live in a global economy and that many of the jobs we have lost here have gone overseas. Many of these jobs have gone to countries such as China and India where the hours are long and the wages are low. The governments in these countries are desperate for these jobs and for foreign investors to help their growing economies and for these reasons many times the government restrictions are kept at a minimum. Unfortunately many of the foreign companies are all too eager to exploit the cheap labor they have found and that is when the ethical dilemmas arise.
Many companies have their headquarters in the United States, but
manufacturing facilities in other countries. Ethical dilemmas might arise if, for example, job conditions that are considered normal in the manufacturing country conflict with labor standards in the United States. A bigger danger can arise when a US corporation sets up manufacturing operations in a third world country and due to the lower expectations or less stringent regulations, lower standards are practiced there. An excellent example is the Bhopal chemical plant disaster in India when Union Carbide Co., an American company, allowed the plant there to deteriorate in conditions until disaster struck killing thousands and left hundreds of thousands affected.
During the night of December 2, 1984 large amounts of water entered a tank containing a chemical known as MIC. The reaction of the water and the chemical caused the temperature within the tank to increase to over 200 degrees Celsius, which in turn raised the pressure to a level the tank was not designed to withstand. This forced emergency venting of the...