Business Ethics

Paying a large tip to secure a better table in a restaurant is the same as offering a bribe in business to secure a contract is a statement that I happen to disagree with. If you are offering money to someone for a table at a restaurant I would think that you need to have something better to do with your money. Maybe try using it to buy a meal to take to a local shelter; it may make you feel much better than if you were sitting at a better table anyway.

I guess that it is obvious I do not agree with the practice, but I do not think that they are both legally defined as a bribe. I went to law.com to look up the word Bribery and found the following definition (Bribery). The crime of giving or taking money or some other valuable item in order to influence a public official (any government employee) in the performance of his/her duties (Bribery). Bribery includes paying to get government contracts, giving a bottle of liquor to a building inspector to ignore a violation or grant a permit, or selling stock to a Congressman at a cut-rate price (Bribery). The definition has been expanded to include bribes given to corporate officials to obtain contracts or other advantages which are against company policy (Bribery). Using this definition of the law it stands to reason that since the waiter is not a government or corporate official he has not legally placed himself in a situation that has broken the law (Bribery). Therefore the two scenarios are not the same, legally anyway (Bribery).

With the legal aspect out of the way, I do not see any difference in the scenarios morally or ethically. In both situations there is unfair treatment for those who did not come up with the extra cash or gift to acquire the end result, a great table or a contract.

Our first assignment asked us to choose a moral philosophy that was best for business, not what best described myself. I did choose the Utilitarian Theory, but I felt