Bribery, Corruption and Social Responsibility - Essay Example

(Business for Social Responsibility) With this background this paper attempts to make a report suggesting the possible course of action for the executive of the company BIM taking into account the broader issues of the company's ethical policies, its social responsibility and the so called social evils of bribery and corruption, Job and wealth creation in society is the primary objective of businesses. According to Canada's business and consumer website the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is to position the companies to both proactively manage risks and take advantage of opportunities especially with respect to their corporate reputation and broad engagement of stakeholders.

The stakeholders group includes shareholders, employees, customers, communities, suppliers, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations and others affected by the companies' activities. It is assumed that through CSR enterprises can play an important role in preventing and combating corruption and bribery and in helping preventing the use of enterprises for money laundering and criminal activities financing. In the instant case the for Thomas the question before him is whether to follow the code of Ethics of his company with respect to the use of bribery and loose the four years background work done by spending $ 30 million of the shareholders money and a lucrative opportunity of turning in a good business for the company or To follow the accepted practices of the country, pay the necessary bribes and get the contracts signed for the company ignoring the company's code of ethics.

The question is to be looked into from the angle of the social responsibility of the company in so far as how it proactively manage the risks and take advantage of the opportunities. By not paying the bribe and losing the business opportunity Thomas is not doing justice toThe shareholders whose valuable money of $ 30 million is spent on developing this project. Quite obviously the bribery practice in Lagos or Nigeria has not started after the decision to work on the project. Hence Thomas and the Company should have knowledge on these practices even before the decision on the project is taken.

The code of ethics is a subsequent development as the background work for the project is being carried out for four years now. Hence to withdraw now from the project at a stage when the efforts are going to give benefit to the company is doing injustice to the shareholders and against the principle of corporate social responsibilityThe part of employees who have been recruited for the project, since the company may decide to retrench them in case the project is not taking off. It is none of their fault that the director or the company is not aware of the prevailing practices of bribery and corruption in the country of operation.

In any case they should not be penalized. If they are it is against the so called Social ResponsibilityThe issue needs to take into