1. Summarize your take on Ethics and International Business under 250 words.

2. After graduation you got into a lucrative Management Trainee program of a Tobacco brand.
How will you justify your actions to your teacher who taught you Business Ethics

Ethics is what we know as wrong or right. It is the morally accepted principle among universe. Business
ethics deals with the accepted moral principles undertaken by most of the stakeholders in doing business
in a particular setup. The setup can be a country, industry or a brand.
For an international business manager when posted to another country, that manger might have to face
some ethical issues. There are 5 ethical issues that are employment practices, human rights,
environmental regulation, corruption and moral obligation. For example, Mr. Alif finds it very hard to
adapt to his new office in Bangladesh since he has been shifted from the Indian branch. He hates the
traffic and struggles to cope with the language barrier that’s employment practices. GAP outsource its
product from India by exploiting child labor which is against human rights. Big companies give orders to
garments knowing the fact that they are pollution the environment is what environmental regulation
issue is about. Corruption has become a part of business and many companies minimize their financial
statements in order to pay low tax to the government. Arju pays lump-sum money to the local indigenous
people of Mymensingh for the pollution his company caused to their water source is what moral
obligation is about. Ethical dilemmas are situation where none of the available alternatives are ethically
acceptable.
There are also 5 roots of unethical behavior. Personal ethics depends from peoples believe in religion, the
way someone is bought up. Knowledge of ethics is when a person is surrounded by unethical behavior to
that person it becomes a normal phenomenon. Unethical business culture is if the business revenues are
generated in an unethical way for example the business of border passing by boats to another county by
crossing sea which we often see in Bangladesh. Unrealistic performance goal is when a person is pushed
meet unrealistic goals of selling a product making the person bound to do unethical acts to save the job.
Leaders help to establish the culture of an organization and they set the example that others follow.
The philosophical approaches to ethics are, friedmean believes profits should be earned legally in a
business social responsible way. Cultural relativism believes when in rome, do as a roman. The Righteous
Moralist claims that a multinational’s home-country standards of ethics are not the appropriate ones in all
countries. The Naive Immoralist asserts that if a manager sees that firms from other nations are not
following ethical norms in a host country then they should not either. Rights and Justice are universally
followed. Utilitarianism is about balance between good and bad. Kantian ethics hold that people should
be treated as ends and never purely as means to the ends of others. Rights and Justice is about.
The Friedman doctrine asserts that a business should only have one social responsibility of making profits
by using its resources legally in an open and free manner without perpetuating fraud or sham. Hence,
social responsibility of any business entity should be to make proceeds without violation of the law.

One of the different aspects of this society is everything revolves around tobacco. Wherever we go we are
surrounded by people who consumes tobacco. Even though a label is given on the packets about the
harmful effects on health and despite knowing the fact people still have it. In each and every house there
are some smoking person who exist in the family. Even if it’s not the family member there are some
relatives who are into tobacco. This is something which we can’t ignore and we have accepted smoking as
legal in our society and it is legal. Besides, I do not consume tobacco I will only work and fulfill my
responsibility as a Management Trainee and get my monthly remuneration. Working for tobacco does not
mean unethical but having tobacco and also working for the company can be unethical to some extent.
Another reason to justify my action would be that, government still allows company to sell tobacco. Even
though on tv channels we often see that government discourage it and also don’t allow the tobacco
company to advertise their products but still tobaccos are being sold and are legally sold. If it was terrible
then it would have been illegal to sell tobacco and consume.