Deck 12: International Business and Globalization

Question 1

Select the statement that is not an objection to insisting that diversity of values in cultures entails compromising because of ethical relativism.

A)It is a mistake to conclude too quickly that because cultures are diverse, they necessarily hold diverse ethical values.
B)Given different circumstances, conduct that might be condemned or excused in one context might not be excused or condemned in another. But, excusing unethical behavior is not the same as justifying it.
C)Even in cases where a local culture holds values different from one's own, a person's own integrity would require that one's personal values not be abandoned.
D)Attempts to justify or excuse otherwise unethical conduct by appeals to local values and customs that are advanced only to contribute to the bottom line are simply another instance where ethical responsibilities restrict self-interest. This fact alone is not a good reason to abandon ethics in the face of a disagreement of values.
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Answer 1

None of the answers are correct.

Question 2

Which of the following rights might clearly be the sole responsibility of government rather than of international business?

A)The right to minimal education.
B)The right to nondiscriminatory treatment.
C)The right to physical security.
D)The right to a fair trial.
E)A and D.
F)B and C.

Answer 2

A and D.

Question 3

Identify the ways in which the process of international economic integration has increasingly become more common and accelerated in the last decade or two.

A)International trade agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have been established.
B)The Euro was adopted in 2002 within the European Union, establishing a common currency.
C)International loans from the World Bank have supported major development projects throughout the world.
D)Monetary policies established by the International Monetary Fund have made it increasingly easy for capital to flow between countries.
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Answer 3

All of the answers are correct.

Question 4

Select the reasoning that challenges support for the ethical case for free trade and international economic cooperation.

A)The pursuit of profit within social and economic arrangements that secure free and open competition will allocate resources to their most highly valued uses and distribute those resources in ways that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
B)International competition for labor, jobs, goods and services, natural resources, and capital will, over time, increase the overall well-being of everyone.
C)Economic integration is a major impediment to conflict-the more countries cooperate economically, the less likely they will want to go to war.
D)Even though newly employed workers in the poorer countries who are forced to take jobs that are at a subsistence level in sweatshop conditions are better off in these jobs than they would be without them, the choice to work under such conditions is little more than extortion and exploitation by business.

Question 5

Choose the statement that does not provide a reasonable way for international businesses to treat their employees in foreign countries on a comparable level with their treatment of employees in their home countries.

A)Pay wages and benefits that are somewhere between those paid in the home country and the minimal wages that will get people to work in the host country.
B)Pay wages and benefits that are very similar in the home and host countries.
C)If it takes two people earning minimum wages to support a family of four just above the poverty level in the United States, a minimum wage in the host country would be similarly determined.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Question 6

Choose the statements that do not support the idea that international businesses should rely on local firms and independent contractors to supply workers in host countries.

A)To benefit from less costly local labor, business should hire workers directly and take full and direct responsibility for how they are treated.
B)Hiring individuals as contractors on a per-item basis avoids having to pay fair wages and benefits.
C)As independent contractors, these individuals are responsible for the terms and conditions of their own employment.
D)Local firms are better equipped to recruit competent workers who will be satisfied with minimum wages.
E)A and D.
F)A and B.

Question 7

Here are some ethical reasons for regulating economic activity. Determine which ones are not likely to be judged a barrier to free trade.

A)Protecting the environment
B)Protecting workers and consumers
C)Protecting family farms
D)Protecting domestic industries
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Question 8

Which statement is not a policy included in Thomas Friedman's Golden Straitjacket, the policies that a country should follow for itself if it "opts for prosperity"?

A)Getting rid of quotas and domestic monopolies
B)Privatizing state-owned industries and utilities
C)Opening industries, stock, and bond markets to direct foreign ownership and investment
D)Restricting imports
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Question 9

Identify the statement that challenges the criticism that global economic integration threatens deeply held noneconomic values.

A)The World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund are themselves undemocratic bureaucracies that threaten the political values and self-determination in poor countries.
B)Private multinational corporations are replacing legitimate governments as the true international decision makers.
C)The policies of the Golden Straitjacket are simply rational requirements for a nation that chooses prosperity over poverty. Financial and economic norms are analogous to scientific laws discovered by social scientists.
D)Global market capitalism fueled by multinational corporations seeks to expand worldwide markets for their products and creates a cultural homogenization that threatens local cultures and traditions.

Question 10

Which of the following is a criticism of the World Trade Organization (WTO)?

A)Its trade agreements seem to trump local decision making in countries and thereby undermine self-determination and democracy.
B)Being a democratic institution comprised of elected bureaucrats, it is answerable to public constituency that leads to interference in its decision making.
C)It undermines national sovereignty and demands less political regulation among industrialized countries.
D)Its economic policies provide poor countries with financial aid without making it contingent that they follow policies to promote economic stability and growth.

Question 11

Identify an argument that supports the policies aimed at protecting domestic business and domestic jobs.

A)If the goal of business is jobs and economic development, the location of a corporate headquarters is much more important than the location of operations and supply chains.
B)According to the economic and utilitarian argument, such policies will increase overall happiness as goods and services will become more affordable.
C)The social contract logic states that since businesses receive benefits from the society in which they operate, they owe that society certain duties in return.
D)Such policies put governments, rather than consumers, in the position of choosing winners and losers in the marketplace.

Question 12

The fact that political and economic elites in other countries tolerate corrupt and unethical conduct and are the very ones to benefit from that conduct in certain cases does not provide evidence to support the claim that what we take as unethical is ethically acceptable there.

Question 13

The maximalist approach to the question of whether there are any values that can be reasonably applied across cultures holds that as long as corporations cause no harm, they have fulfilled their ethical responsibilities by meeting their economic goal of producing goods, services, jobs, and profits for consumers, employees, and shareholders.

Question 14

One major challenge to the minimalist approach that holds that business is free to pursue its economic interests as long as certain minimal moral rights are not violated in the process is that it does not seem to explain why the responsibilities correlated with these rights fall to multinational business rather than to government.

Question 15

Decisions made within businesses only rarely can have as great an influence on international affairs as those made within government, so they are not one of the central problems of worldwide economic integration.

Question 16

Defenders of globalization argue that international economic integration is an essential step in worldwide economic growth, which alone can adequately address worldwide poverty and deprivation.

Question 17

The argument that the free, competitive international market will provide a more efficient and optimal distribution of economic goods and services is utilitarian in that the recipient of the market's benefits is the collective "greatest number of people" while allowing that the market may cause harm to actual individuals and their families in the process.

Question 18

There is no strong worldwide political consensus in favor of local environmental, labor, and consumer regulation, so there is no opposition to free trade agreement and the World Trade Organization that will be major engines for deregulation.

Question 19

Defenders of the Golden Straitjacket policies argue that poor nations are free to reject such policies as, among others, making the private sector the engine of economic growth, eliminating and lowering tariffs on imported goods, getting rid of quotas and domestic monopolies, opening industries, stock, and bond markets to direct foreign ownership and investment, but that the poor nations cannot reasonably expect economic prosperity to follow from alternative policies.

Question 20

Defenders of institution like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund claim that because these institutions exist and have authority only because nations have agreed to have them exist with authority and have freely entered into agreements that created and control them, their critics can be accused of supporting undemocratic policies.

Question 21

Even though much of the wealth of the industrialized nations relies on the resources and markets in the developing world, that is not a reason to believe that taking steps to relieve poverty in these countries is an ethical duty of the citizens and business of the industrialized world rather than a simple act of charity.

Question 22

No country is entirely self-sufficient in either producing, or finding markets for, its good and services.

Question 23

Poor countries that reject Thomas Friedman's Golden Straitjacket can reasonably expect that economic prosperity will follow from alternative policies.

Question 24

If environmental, labor, consumer, and other ethical regulations are accepted and endorsed universally, they prove to be barriers to fair and open competition.

Question 25

If free trade and greater international economic integration can improve the economic well-being of any nation that adopts free trade and free market policies, it follows that these policies can improve the economic well-being of all countries.