Dear readers, recall the blog I made summarizing my learnings from Analysis of Business Problems (ABP) course and with that post I drew the curtain on sharing events from ABP class sessions. Surprisingly, the course facilitator, Dr Segun Shogbanmu has another joker in his bag and that was unleashed when Executives were invited to Guest Speaker session to wrap up the ABP course for the semester.
The guest speaker brought out some issues that affect decision making in corporate world even though those issues are either not publicly discussed or considered to be indispensable and have been accepted as part of factors in making business decision in real life. Three of the issues raised and I would like to review today are Bribery, Extortion and Lobbying.
Bribery has been defined as “the act of giving money (or something else of value) to someone to get them to do something you want them to do, especially something they’re not supposed to do”[1], Extortion is said to have occurred when someone uses “violence, threats, intimidation, or pressure from one’s authority to force someone to hand over money (or something else of value) or do something they don’t want to do”[2] and lobbying is defined as “any attempt by individuals or private interest groups to influence the decisions of government”[3].
From lexical definitions above, all three issues have some commonality thus:
- They required more than one person to happen – giver and receiver or payer and collector,
- They involved the exchange of something of value – maybe money, power, approval, etc.
However, there are also differences between the three concepts; where bribery and lobbying seem to be mutually agreed upon by parties involved extortion on the other hand seems to be at pleasure of one person and displeasure of other party involved. Also, bribery is a form of ‘giver’ getting ‘collector’ to give value that the ‘giver’ does not deserve or qualify to receive while lobbying is most times targeted at ‘lobbyist(s)’ getting policy or event to be in his/their favor even though the policy or event should have been against the ‘lobbyist(s)’ interest or favor. Among the three issues, the only lobbying seems to be seen from an open event angle since it is legally recognized in most democracies in the world as a legitimate means of engaging political office holders or legislators to make laws and policies that will favor or protect the interests of lobby groups or individuals. Even though, it is regulated by laws, it is difficult to determine the efficacy of such laws or regulations especially for indirect lobbying where target of lobbyists is to influence government policies and decisions by shaping public opinion[4].
Aside ethical and legal concerns as raised above, these three issues increase cost of doing business and can stifle business environment where they are predominant especially with bribery and extortion even lobbying has been proven not to be business-friendly especially where government institutions are weak, and enforcement of laws is not effective. Bribery and extortion can lead to collapse of business, damage reputation, lower employees’ morale, and reduce productivity and in some business environments, bribery and extortion can lead to jail terms[5].
While business leaders could and should utilize lobby as a positive tool to secure favorable government policies without negative impact on the public, no business leader should adopt bribery or extortion as a tool to make business decision or grow business because an unethical business is not sustainable – bubble will always burst!
[1] Bribery Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
[2] ibid
[3] Lobbying | Definition & Facts | Britannica
[4] Lobbying | Definition & Facts | Britannica
[5] Bribery and Corruption in Businesses | PBS UK (peninsulagrouplimited.com)
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