India’s Business Environment: Beyond Corruption

In spite of expected growth of 6 or 7 percent for 2012, the economy of India was facing a pessimistic outlook at the time. The underlying cause seems to have been mismanagement by the federal government—in particular, by the ruling Congress Party. In actuality, the problem lies in the Indian business culture, and the society itself. As such, the problem is not so easily fixed as a change of government or policy.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

Wal-Mart: Political Contributions as Bribery

In September 2005, “a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country. . . . Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. In a confidential report to his superiors, Wal-Mart’s lead investigator, a former F.B.I. special agent, summed up their initial findings this way: ‘There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.’”[1]

Critics protesting a new Wal-Mart store after the bribery scandal    John Moore/Getty

The full essay is in The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.

1. David Barstow, “Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle,” The New York Times, April 21, 2012.

Hollywood Bribes China

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as F.C.P.A., “forbids American companies from making illegal payments to government officials or others to ease the way for operations in foreign countries.”[1] The practical difficulty facing American companies doing business around the world is that in some cultures bribes are so ubiquitous they are simply a part of doing business.  For American companies to refuse to participate in what is generally expected can be a competitive disadvantage, particularly if substitutes exist and the practice is widespread.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Edward Wyatt, Michael Cieply, and Brooks Barnes, “S.E.C. Asks if Hollywood Paid Bribes in China,” The New York Times, April 25, 2012.