3 ms·

> Every culture has its own unwritten rules and customs. Many cultures have bribery as an unwritten rule and custom. Every official you run across is expecting

> Every culture has its own unwritten rules and customs. Many cultures have bribery as an unwritten rule and custom. Every official you run across is expecting a small bribe. Should companies adopt that culture as well?

jltsiren 3y ago
That's a good question almost every major international business struggles with. As far as I know, the usual answers are paying the required bribes quietly and refusing to do business in that culture. The third option, trying to do business without paying bribes, rarely works.
- Arnt 3y ago
  I'll argue a point I don't really agree with, namely that in this case bribes are fair. Coiuntries are sovereign. Foreigners don't decide, that's a key outcome of the thirty years' war. So if you go to X, the polite, proper, non-imperialist thing is to follow accepted custom. Of course, that raises the question of what "accepted custom" means. It's not clear to me that bribing is really accepted in the countries where it's a custom, widely accepted, rather than being something people do reluctantly.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Then you can for moral reasons refuse to do business there because you don't feel like playing in a crooked game. That in turn might have the effect of improving the world a bit.
    - Arnt 3y ago
      Of course you can do that. If you do that, what else will you also do? For example: Will you use oil from Saudi Arabia for your business? You could refrain because so much of the payment gets sidetracked to those 4000 princes, or because refraining brakes the climate changes a little bit, or even both. The list goes on. There's much that's bad in the world. Deciding to be principled about bribes and morally flexible about the rest seems… okay to me. Not particularly bad.
SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
That actually seems like a really interesting question without an immediately obvious answer.
halgir 3y ago
Without commenting on whether they normatively should adopt that culture, they should not be surprised if refusal to adapt to that custom results in business failure.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Should companies adopt that culture as well? The only reason international firms are sometimes a little circumspect about that is because they also operate in home countries where bribery even in foreign countries is often against the socially enforced (written, in this case, but what is important is the enforced part, not written vs. unwritten) rules and customs. E.g., https://www.trade.gov/us-foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.trade.gov/us-foreign-corrupt-practices-act

jltsiren 3y ago

That's a good question almost every major international business struggles with. As far as I know, the usual answers are paying the required bribes quietly and refusing to do business in that culture. The third option, trying to do business without paying bribes, rarely works.

Arnt 3y ago
I'll argue a point I don't really agree with, namely that in this case bribes are fair. Coiuntries are sovereign. Foreigners don't decide, that's a key outcome of the thirty years' war. So if you go to X, the polite, proper, non-imperialist thing is to follow accepted custom. Of course, that raises the question of what "accepted custom" means. It's not clear to me that bribing is really accepted in the countries where it's a custom, widely accepted, rather than being something people do reluctantly.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Then you can for moral reasons refuse to do business there because you don't feel like playing in a crooked game. That in turn might have the effect of improving the world a bit.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    Of course you can do that. If you do that, what else will you also do? For example: Will you use oil from Saudi Arabia for your business? You could refrain because so much of the payment gets sidetracked to those 4000 princes, or because refraining brakes the climate changes a little bit, or even both. The list goes on. There's much that's bad in the world. Deciding to be principled about bribes and morally flexible about the rest seems… okay to me. Not particularly bad.

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago

That actually seems like a really interesting question without an immediately obvious answer.

halgir 3y ago

Without commenting on whether they normatively should adopt that culture, they should not be surprised if refusal to adapt to that custom results in business failure.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Should companies adopt that culture as well? The only reason international firms are sometimes a little circumspect about that is because they also operate in home countries where bribery even in foreign countries is often against the socially enforced (written, in this case, but what is important is the enforced part, not written vs. unwritten) rules and customs. E.g., https://www.trade.gov/us-foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.trade.gov/us-foreign-corrupt-practices-act