**7. Conclusion and recommendations**

**6.2. Discussions with Mr. Herbert Jauch**

100 Globalization

Mr. Herbert Jauch is a Labour Consultant in Namibia, author, and have been one of the vocal people on the Ramatex saga in Namibia. Jauch revealed that one of the huge challenges for local firms is the cut-throat completion posed by global competition. In the era of globalisation, the world economy—guided by the dogma of free market capitalism—has become a site of intense competitive struggles where only the strongest survive. Thus many local firms could either not take off or collapsed under the pressure of cheap imports. He further stated that proponents of globalisation argue that globalisation provides consumers with cheap goods and services and that the competitive local firms will benefit from export markets. On balance, Jauch argued that overall, Namibia has been one of the many losers in the globalisation system and this is shown in mass unemployment and very low wages for the vast majority of workers.

Jauch lamented that the Ramatex case has clearly shown that it is naïve to believe that any investment is a good investment. He blamed Namibian policy makers for failing to understand how companies like Ramatex operate, how they are driven by short-term profit maximisation and how they have absolutely no regard for the developmental aspirations of the country they are operating in. Jauch cautioned it is thus important to be extremely selective when it comes to foreign investments and to not blindly accept the conditions set by such

He reiterated that weaker economies like Namibia (and African economies in general) were always hoping that in the end they would benefit from globalisation. However, the pattern is very clear: the strong and powerful economic blocs and countries (like China and the EU) have been the main beneficiaries and they are dictating the rules of globalisation to a large extent. He said African scholars like Samir Amin have long argued that Africa needs to selectively delink from globalisation and develop new links that are equal and mutually beneficial with countries that do not have an imperial agenda. In his seminar paper title *The Global Crisis and African Alternatives—Inspirations from Venezuela*, Jauch gave highlights of Venezuela's redistribution and participatory democracy as an alternative to the global crisis. Venezuela embarked on a series of radical reforms regarding social services provision, which involved channelling oil revenues to provide access to housing, education, and health care, which resulted in broadened access to university education for students from poor families, accessible healthcare, redressed regional imbalances, increased minimum wages, lower poverty levels, growth in GDP, reduced unemployment, lower Gini Index, and overall improved standard of living [6]. Jauch advised the third world countries to learn from the "semi-liberated" countries in Latin America—Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, as it seems obvious that the social progress made by Venezuela through

The potential of globalisation to transform this world to be a better place for everyone is unquestionable. Free trade is supposed to promote global economic growth, job creation,

Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America—is a regional bloc, organised in 2004, that aims for social, political,

hold significant promises.

investors, to avoid similar problematic investments in future.

the *"Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our America"*<sup>1</sup>

and economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

**6.3. Summary of discussions**

1

The findings of this paper reveal that the impact of globalisation on the economic aspect is twofold, bringing about two schools of thought. One is that of the perceptions that multinationals seek for new favourable markets to grow at the expense of the market in which they operate, while the other is that of pure global interdependence and development. While trade liberation is supposed to benefit all economies globally, the imbalances still that are negatively skewed to the developing countries still exist. Nations are urged to develop their own markets and support growth at home policies in order to avoid dependency on large players, while supporting balanced trade openness. For many developing countries, globalisation brings with negative spillovers to the poor as some multinationals exploit the cheap and abundant labour in developing countries, drives out small firms out of the market, damage the environment, and leave those countries to pick up the pieces. Namibia learned the hard way when Ramatex closed its doors leaving many people unemployed, dreams shuttered, and hopeless. Many people flocked to urban areas in hopes of better living conditions, placing a huge burden on the government to provide basic services to the escalating urban population. The experts interviewed highlighted the need to improve domestic laws and regulation to guard against exploitation of resources and environment, manipulation, corruption, and unethical business practices. Law enforcement also came out strongly as nations struggle to ensure compliance due to lack of capacity and resources. Conversely, globalisation is also highly praised as it allows free flow of goods and services, flow of information, labour movement, increased employment opportunities, integration of cultures and tolerance, decrease in commodity prices, among others. The researchers also recommend symbiotic entrepreneurship in order for firms to focus on relationships rather than on competition, thereby enhancing competitiveness and growth especially among firms in the developing countries.

**Chapter 6**

Provisional chapter

**The Moral Dilemmas of Global Business**

Since the 1970s, the rise of global capitalism posed new ethical dilemmas for Western multinational corporations (MNCs), when it became apparent that they could profit from lower labor, environmental and human rights standards in developing countries. Academic reflection on the matter led to the development of the international business ethics field, which seeks to answer a key question: how should a company behave when the standards followed in the host country are lower than those followed in the home country? This chapter will fulfill three goals. Firstly, it will present the new moral dilemmas that economic globalization and technological change are posing to multinational corporations. Secondly, it will introduce a number of answers developed by practitioners in civil society, government and business. Finally, it will review a number of theoretical answers developed by normative researchers by adapting traditional moral theories such as utilitarianism, kantian deontology and virtue ethics. The chapter will conclude that traditional moral theories have mostly failed at providing guidance for a number of new cross-

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.74833

"The Gordian knot of international business ethics is formed around the vexing question, how should a company behave when the standards followed in the host country are lower than those followed in the

Since the 1970s, globalization, deregulation and technological change triggered a rapid expansion of multinational corporations (MNCs) to every corner of the planet. By the year 2000, some 63,000 multinational companies with more than 690,000 foreign affiliates accounted for 25% of world production [2]. These "new Leviathans" became increasingly powerful and

> © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Moral Dilemmas of Global Business

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

cultural moral dilemmas in the global economy.

Keywords: globalization, business ethics, cross-cultural, normative

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74833

Federico Ast

Federico Ast

Abstract

1. Introduction

home country?" [1].
