Bribery is the giving, promising or offering of any gift, loan, fee, reward or other advantage to any person as an inducement to do something which is dishonest, illegal or a breach of trust. Bribery is unethical because it undermines the fairness of the market, distorts transaction costs and leads to the destruction of an open, honest and decent society. The presence of bribery on a large-scale harms the overall economic, social and political progress of developing countries. Bribery is illegal under the laws of almost all the countries and is also illegal globally under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Acceptance of corruption has risen in the last decade or so and ethical conduct of those elected or appointed to the positions of power has become a central concern for most if not all societies. Unethical behavior, such as corruption, destroys public confidence and trust in government. One of the most famous business ethics cases of the seventies was the Lockheed payments scandal in Japan (Boatright, 2003). It involved major companies as well as political figures in staggering sums of money. Eventually it led to the United States' "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act", which focused attention on the practice of giving gratuities - a seeming necessity at every level of a transaction if one were to be successful at doing business in Japan. FCPA package that includes formulating ethical codes to direct civil servants and training civil servants to respect ethical rules of administration, the rule of law and appropriate legal instruments and their implementation.

In brief the FCPA law states that: It shall be unlawful for any issuer which has a class of securities registered pursuant to section 78l of this title or which is required to file reports under section 78o(d) of this title, or for any officer, director, employee, or agent of such issuer or any stockholder thereof acting on behalf of such issuer, to make use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of an offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of any money, or offer, gift, promise to give, or authorization of the giving of anything of value to any foreign official for purposes of influencing any act or decision of such foreign official in his official capacity, inducing such foreign official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official, or securing any improper advantage; or inducing such foreign official to use his influence with a foreign government or instrumentality thereof to affect or influence any act or decision of such government or instrumentality.

The FCPA prohibits paying, offering, promising to pay (or authorizing to pay or offer) money or anything of value. Violations of the FCPA's ant bribery provisions: firms are subject to a fine of up to $2 million and imprisonment for up to five years. To label an act bribery is to make a moral judgment. Bribery is wrong because the gift giver and receiver apparently strike a deal, which puts their own interests above other parties, who have legitimate prior claims in the transaction and on whose behalf the agents are acting. So here the Moral decisions are not based on what is best for the entire community but a few individuals. To use an example from Kant, we describe a type of action and its conditions (end, means, values, consequences), name it bribery, and then ask: would one want to make this action universal? The answer is "no." So the worldviews are very important here. For if we asked the question in terms of Mill's utilitarianism (does it produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number?) the answer may well be quite different, whether considering bribery as an individual act or as a rule of behavior. To say that bribery is always wrong can only be established in the context of a specific worldview and a specific value set that one takes as universal and absolute. Utilitarian defense of the moral rules of loyalty and fairness show that such act is immorally.

Some of the prohibition laws of corruption are ambiguous. The paying of a commission is apparently the least troublesome resource transfer. Morally, it is embedded in a freely undertaken and fair contract framework and represents remuneration in a transaction of mutually beneficial exchange. As a type of action the ends sought, means taken and consequences, which arise, are usually justified in terms of instrumental values (efficiency, utility) and self-interest. Such an action is only morally correct if it is consistent with fundamental values of justice and basic moral virtues and vice versa. Furthermore, the intentions of the parties must be honorable and neither their consciences nor freedom are impaired. However, all of this can be easily corrupted. Values of self-interest can be transformed into raw selfishness and expediency replaces justice. Some would argue that commissions have become the favorite form of bribery in the United States, because they offer the cover of legality. For example, one US code states that federal regulators may be offered complimentary donuts and coffee, but that they must pay for their own sandwiches.

The law conflicts with other cultural values. Giving a gratuity, such as a tip, is a bit more difficult to analyze. In foreign countries to approach someone and bring nothing is unusual. Gift giving forms part of a larger picture: belonging to a network of personal relationships and nurturing such relationships and strengthening the trust, caring, and commitment between the parties. In day-to-day business, sometimes these realities lead to patterns of choice and the determination of priorities that are expressed in concrete deeds, such as favoring in commercial deals those people with whom one has close relationships. Then that’s wrong but if it brings business that in turn employs local community and improves the lifestyle of those people, then I don’t see anything wrong with that. If giving a gift unselfishly expresses gratitude - a bonus for a job well done and performance exceeding expectations - it is a sign of generosity and esteem for the other. However, Tipping may in fact, mask either bribery or extortion like forced tipping. The tipee extorts extra payments for a service. In the end, the overall analytical framework of values and consequences remains ambiguous. As with commissions, the phenomenon of giving gratuities can either be morally up. In giving gratuities, people may respond immediately that there is both a commonly known socio-cultural expectation and approval of tipping in general. In that sense it represents a suitable means to a good end with beneficial consequences. It may be considered both a "right" type of action as well as a "good" action in the context of a particular tip. So where does the law draw the line?

In doing business abroad, a manager needs to gather and correlate such cultural information and its supporting ethical data in ways that make sense and render it usable. U.S. organizations are more rule-based, closely following formal rules and regulations rather than "following relationships." Control mechanisms in the former tend to be more cooperative and based on personal trust, and incentives take forms that emphasize loyalty and security. In the West, control is often more conflictive and regulatory, with incentives based upon individual achievement and merit. So there is a concept of individualism versus group identity. In the West people often define themselves as standing out from the group, emphasizing individual creativity, achievement, reward and status. In counties like China people are more at caution to define their place within a group. This becomes more evident when applying the cultural process to doing business in China.

Many of the laws mention different cultural perceptions of corruption and the problem of common bribery. Despite the definitional problems, a large number of businesses have made public commitments in this area and other organizations such as NGOs and business associations have issued code of conduct that mention bribery. In analysis of the texts, a code is scored as a bribery code if it mentions money transactions, political contributions, gift giving, or entertainment. These laws have shown that firms use different approaches to implementation, depending on the ethical issues they address -- there is no “one size fits all” for corporate compliance systems. However, firms show considerable agreement as to the “choice of weapons” in the fight against bribery. This emerging consensus may facilitate the growth of standardized management systems for dealing with bribery and corruption issues.

Reference:
Boatright, John R. (2003). Ethics and The Conduct of Business. Upper Saddle River:
                  Prentice Hall

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Ant-bribery Provisions
                http://www.bisnis.doc.gov/bisnis/fcp1.htm

Gordon, Kathryn (2001). No Longer Business as Usual. OECD CODE