How Company Programs Are Changing
Upon his return from church, his wife asked Calvin Coolidge, America’s most taciturn president, what the minister’s sermon was about. “Sin,” said Coolidge. “What did he say?” asked his wife. “He was against it,” Coolidge replied.
The “offer, promise, or gift of undue pecuniary or other advantage, whether made directly or through intermediaries, to a person holding public office for that person to commit an act or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties”—otherwise known as the bribery of a public official—elicits a similarly universal response to the minister’s pronouncement on sin. Invariably, this “sin” is prohibited in the criminal statutes of the country in which it is committed.
Despite this consensus, in many developing countries the bribery of public officials seriously impedes development and in more advanced industrial countries it is hardly unknown. Moreover, the practice is often supported by well-articulated rationales for making corrupt payments. These arguments include the universal and eternal nature of such behavior, the need for respecting the traditional way of doing business in unfamiliar cultures, and the problem that if the bribe is not paid, a competitor with a highly inferior product and fewer scruples will get the contract.
These defenses raise an important point. To what extent, if at all, can a company adhere to principles that its competition does not accept? It is question that company representatives have been asking for at least 30 years.
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