Consider the practice of making “facilitating payments” to foreign officials and others as part of doing business abroad in the context of the following statement:
International companies are confronted with a variety of decisions that create ethical dilemmas for the decision makers. “Right- wrong,” “just-unjust” derive their meaning and true value from the attitudes of a given culture. Some ethical standards are culture-specific, and we should not be surprised to find that an act that is considered quite ethical in one culture may be looked upon with disregard in another.
Explain how culture interacts with the acceptability of making facilitating payments in a country. Use Rights Theory and Justice reasoning to analyze the ethics of allowing facilitating payments such as under the FCPA in the U.S. and prohibiting them as under the U.K. Bribery Act.