Dilemma for American Companies - Dealing with Corruption in Foreign Countries

Doing business in the international marketplace is a challenge most American corporations are not prepared for. Rare is the American corporation that understands the proper way to prepare itself and its employees. The environments resulting from global corruption in which the employees of the company will find themselves require intensive preparation. Too often the failure of the company to prepare the employee, for what ever reason, results in the sacrifice of an employee that would have been a lifelong asset for the company.

When an American corporation plans to open a new office in a state different from the home office, significant planning is undertaken. Site surveys are taken, building facilities teams travel to the new site and surveys are undertaken. Bidding construction contractors are interviewed and financial administrators ensure that proper banking and legal contacts are in place. In short, a full court press by the company management to ensure a successful start-up of the new office.

If this same American company decides to open an office in a foreign country do they follow the same procedure? Most likely and all too often they do not. Instead, they pick some rising young star in the company and send them to the new country on their own. They might as well place the rope around the neck of that aspiring company star because failure is almost certainly guaranteed.

American executives and companies totally misunderstand that expecting performance levels from foreign managers that match US colleagues is inherently unfair. More over it usually puts the US employee in an impossible and no-win situation. The reason is the US understanding of what is, and what is not, corruption.

In many third world countries the building of relationships is not considered corruption. When done properly there is a difference between activities that violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the relationship building required to reach expected US performance standards.