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| Name | Crossing the Boundaries of Obligation: Are Corporate Salaries a Form of Bribery? |
| Author(s) | John Douglas Bishop |
| Editor | Bernard Hodgson |
| Year | 2004 |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Web Location | http://www.springerlink.com/content/tu0863420k114428/ |
| Keywords | WAGES, COMPENSATION management, BUSINESS ethics, HOST countries (Business), INDUSTRIAL management, WORK & family, PSYCHOLOGY, Industrial, INTERNATIONAL business enterprises, EMPLOYEES, BRIBERY, INTERPERSONAL relations & culture, SOCIAL ethics, METHODOLO |
| Areas of Interest | Corruption; Labour - Employee |
| Citation | Bishop, John Douglas. 2004. Crossing the Boundaries of Obligation: Are Corporate Salaries a Form of Bribery? Journal of Business Ethics 55 (1):1-11. |
| Summary | Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) pay relatively high salaries to local people in host countries. TNCs assume that such employees will accept an employee-employer relationship similar to that which e |
| Abstract / Description | Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) pay relatively high salaries to local people in host countries. TNCs assume that such employees will accept an employee-employer relationship similar to that which exists in North America, but the obligations and personal interests that such a relationship create often directly conflict with systems of obligation already established in the host country. When TNCs do business across the boundaries of systems of obligation, corporate salaries can be seen as a form of unethical bribery. In this paper, the core case of business bribery is described consistent with the usual philosophical analysis of bribery, and the grounds for thinking bribery is unethical are made clear. The amount of a bribe is irrelevant to the ethical analysis. Bribery is distinguished from tips and grease on structural grounds. The concept of a system of obligation is defined, and examples given that show the variability of systems of obligation in host countries. Arguments are given to show that salaries paid by TNCs create obligations and personal interests which sometimes conflict with existing systems of obligation, and that such payments have the same structure as more traditional forms of bribery. The ethical issues of corporations crossing the boundaries of systems of obligations are discussed.
[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Business Ethics is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts) |
| Publisher/Organization | Journal of Business Ethics |
| Cluster Library | None |
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