Introduction
Although there are different approaches to ethics, straw men approaches stand out as one of the main business ethics that are mentioned by scholars of business ethics when primarily demonstrating the inappropriateness of guidelines offered by such approaches when making ethical decisions in a multinational enterprise (Krebs, 2011) . Notably, the four approaches under straw men include the Friedman doctrine, the righteous moralist, the naive immoralist, and the cultural relativism (Hill, 2006) . Critical to note is that all the four approaches contain some inherent value, but in meaningful ways, they are all unsatisfactory. However, some companies have adopted these approaches in addressing the issue of ethics in their organizational structures and functions.
Straw Men Approaches and their Application
The Friedman doctrine was born from a 1970 article authored by the economist and Nobel Prize–winner Milton Friedman which has been considered as a classic straw man that scholars of business ethics mention when considering ethical issues (Krebs, 2011) . According to the Friedman doctrine, the primary objective of corporate social responsibility of an enterprise is to increase revenues provided an organization sticks to the realm of law. Friedman explicitly rejected the argument that business people need to carry out social expenditures that are beyond those that have been specified by law and required for the efficient and effective functioning of the company (Hill, 2006) . In this way, he argued that for instance, it is not right to improve working conditions of employees to a level that is not required by law.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
On the other hand, Cultural Relativism refers to the idea that business ethics are not more than the reflection of culture. This, therefore, means that cultural considerations should be considered when determining all the various forms of ethics (Krebs, 2011) . In this accord, Cultural Relativism argues that an organization should develop and adopt a culture that informs and guides its operations. Cultural Relativism suggests that it is acceptable to use slavery, for example, as a form of organizational culture (Hill, 2006) . However, it is important to note that cultural relativism opposes the line of thought that the universal ideas of morality surpass different cultures.
The Righteous Moralist comes from the school of thought that standards of ethics of multinationals’ home-country are supposed to be followed in a foreign country (Krebs, 2011). The approach is mostly associated with business leaders as well as managers that come from developed countries (Hill, 2006). Although it may appear as a good argument, the approach has created problems for multinational companies who exercise the same standards and behaviors in a foreign country. Finally, the Naive Immoralist approach argues that if business leaders and managers of multinational companies find that other multinational firms are not following or respecting ethical norms in a foreign country, they should as well follow the same route.
In reference to the above four approaches under straw men school of thought, it would be unwise to advise any manager to employ any of them. One of the main examples of multinational companies’ operations that relate to the approaches is the BP Company. For example, the application of facilitating payments to “get things done” in some countries such as India has been implemented for years. However, one of the BP’s foreign policy is that it cannot respect facilitating payments as this is a form of corruption. In India, for instance, BP extended the zero tolerance of facilitation payments to suppliers, consultants among others by signing working agreements.
Conclusion
International business leaders need to play a critical role in ensuring that social responsibilities do not violate the ethical norms of a foreign country. However, if the business practices in a foreign country are unethical, a multinational firm has the moral authority to reject such practices as witnessed in BP’s case in India.
References
Hill, C. W. L. (2006). Global business today . Boston, MA: McGraw Hill/Irwin.
Krebs, D. (2011). The origins of morality: An evolutionary account . New York: Oxford University Press.
