Reference no: EM133437420

Some ethical questions facing companies doing business globally would be outsourcing, human rights, work conditions and honoring labor laws. In my view businesses have done well for themselves and have done poorly for the American/foreign worker. Outsourcing for the business, lowers cost and increase profits while for the American worker results in loss of job, income, and medical benefits. Unfavorable work conditions in foreign lands such as sweat shops are more widely accepted in foreign countries and businesses are not held accountable to provide a suitable work environment for the employees, again profitable for the business but not so much for the worker.

Values, principles and investments are important to the sustainability of a business.

Other benchmarks that exists for sorting out responsible from irresponsible conduct is, the UN Global Compact and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In my view the labor laws are the most helpful in that it protects against forced labor and child labor. The most problematic in my view is environment which supports a proactive attitude to environmental challenges and adds the responsibility for businesses to provide a healthy work environment. This is problematic in my view because of the out of sight out of mind thought process. Some businesses will do anything to turn a profit, including ignoring hazardous and unhealthy work environments. Most often, until companies are exposed they will continue to operate in ways that will return the highest profit.