an assignment in Business Ethics
Managing Ethics across Cultures
In max 1300 words write a detailed outline for a Leadership & Ethics Program with a section on managing ethics across cultures for an international company. You can choose from four industries :
Pharmaceutical Company
A major international pharmaceutical company with more than 30,000 employees operating in North America and Europe with more than offices and manufacturing plants in 40 different locations. They are all direct employees. They have been implementing a diversity policy and commit to employing 30% of the local workforce and to giving 25% of their service contracts to local companies.
Hospitality and Travel Company
A UAE based company with properties and travel agencies across 9 different countries in the World including the Middle East, Africa, the Far East and Europe. They employee more than 10,000 people and work with another 25,000 contracted employees. They are committed to a localization percentage of 30% in the UAE and higher in other parts of the world due to their ability to attract experienced talent. They have several social investments and support local schools that work with people of determination and see that as their CSR space.
Energy Company
A GCC based listed Energy Company which employees 5000 employees and operates through out the 5 countries of the GCC and Egypt, is involved mainly in downstream marketing of gas, lubricates and greases as well as aviation fuels. They work closely with several local distributers for their products. They are committed to localizing their workforce wherever they operate by 20% and have a diversity drive in their sales teams to gain greater market share. They are one of three main sponsors in a children’s cancer treatment and research Centre in Cairo.
Food Supply Chain – Distribution and Retail
An international conglomerate that employs directly 40,000 persons and manufactures in China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India dry and canned foodstuffs. Their head office is in Delhi, India. They operate their plants in more than 20 different locations in the world. They do not have a CSR policy or Diversity Policy. They have had a recent SA 8000 audit which besides some other observations highlighted the need for an ethics and employee welfare policy. They also operate a large network, of contracted distributors that employee more than an estimated 100,000 people overall in all their countries.
You have been engaged by this organization to create a Leadership and Ethics Program that can be presented to the CEO and EXCOM of the company. You realize that there are opportunities and challenges, and you need to highlight this in your write up which is a detailed executive summary. You will need to highlight the key aspects that the program should incorporate, what kind of policies need to be developed, communicated to which stakeholders explaining how and why, and the kind of timelines needed for each policy implementation. You will need to also explain how effectiveness will be measured over the timeline over the next 3-5 years.
