Legal Environment - Essay Example

When multinational companies operate in countries that do not have high standards, they may be in conflict with both the laws of the host and those applied at home, albeit unnoticed. International operations involve objectives to set high standards of services or goods produced while maintaining corporate responsibility. However, conflicts usually arise, as no clear balance can be arrived at. For instance, US companies such as Pepsi, American Standard and Nestle were punished din China for discharging substandard wastewater into rivers in China (Simone, 2000).

This is in spite of their knowledge the US law which strictly condemns such acts (Simone, 2000). It can be said that the human resource manager of the companies involved did not measure up to the task of corporate responsibility. Nevertheless, most US companies attract Americans to work in their foreign subsidiaries, which is in line with the Employment laws the US. This is point however deserves some criticism in that the local people of the countries in which US companies operate are denied employment opportunities.

From the two points of view above, one can surmise that US multinational corporations enforce US laws when doing is for their benefit. On the other hand, there is a tendency to violate the US laws if it is evident that the host country is not in a position to raise a red flag. Multinational corporations have to deal with th. If the laws are in dissonance then it becomes difficult for a company to have a clear direction on which ones to adopt.It is interesting that most international investments are usually done in developing countries where competition is law and resources are in plenty.

However, such countries usually lack unclear laws standards, which make it difficult for them to appraise activities of the companies. The large companies therefore develop a "big boy" syndrome and use their resources to influence the host counties. On the other hand, if the country that the multinational corporation operates in is of equal or near equal status, the conflicts are solved based on sound judgment. For instance, the UK rejected Dasani, a brand of mineral water produced by a US company, coca cola after it was found to contain bromate, a possible carcinogen (LOHAS Journal Weekly).

The allegation forced Coca cola to withdraw the brand from UK. Such a conflict illustrates how some countries all over the world may be ignorantly accepting fake or sub standard products. Nevertheless, it is evident that divergence between country laws should not be so wide since some laws are actually modifications of others. In a case such as the one mentioned above, the multinational corporation has no option but to conform to the laws of the country in which it operates. To summarize it all foreign companies have to submit to the laws of the local country or withdraw their operations.

My opinion is that a foreign company should not impose new laws to the country in which it operates. Therefore, such conflicts are justified since they aim at maintaining good standards of products, whether produced by local companies or multinational