Ethics and International Business

Ethics and International Business:
Finding the Lesser Evil

At the beginning of this course it was made apparent that the class was not meant to be a monologue by the instructor but a discussion. From the numerous discussions held in class, I have come to the belief that ethics in international business was the most significant topic discussed in this course.
Ethics in international business and the outsourcing of labor is a prevalent issue that affects not only the United States and our nation's economy, but also the economy of other countries. In a world where technology has made the whole world accessible, the global economy has become more and more important. The labor standard of the outsourcing companies also gets down to the basic form of human rights and measures the personality of both a person and the corporation as an entity. In addition to all of this, ethics in international business encompasses the majority of all the other topics discussed throughout the course. The subjects of ethics and international business consist of a variety of topics for discussion and analysis. These topics include but are not limited to bribery, extortion, moral norms and human rights. Even from there we can further extend into issues such as cultural and ethical relativity as well as labor standards and practices. The behavior of companies in different host countries affects the economies and people of both the home country of the business as well as the host companies in which it operates. As a result of this the ethical standards at which the company should be held is a source of much debate. The majority of this paper will concentrate on the ethical analysis of human rights and global labor practices. Two main ethical issues in human rights and the multinational corporation are whether corporations should conduct business in countries which violate human rights, and the responsibilities of corporations to monitor the labor practices of its foreign