Ethics change without rhyme or reason - or so it must seem to Dan Rostenkowski, the soon-to-be former Congressman (D-Illinois), who has not only been voted out of office after over thirty years, but faces an array of federal charges for corruption as his valedictory. Rostenkowski's response to the indictments is "it was business as usual on the Hill, not corruption" (Borger 38). The representative from Chicago may be cleared when he has his day in court, but, clearly, he has failed to distinguish the changing mores of the times.
So, too, do Americans fail to distinguish the differences in local ethics as they conduct their business affairs around the globe. As the world shrinks, with NAFTAs and GATTs providing the impetus, United States commercial concerns find it increasingly important to recognize the dividing line between "business as usual" and corruption in the home countries of their new trading partners. Nowhere does the issue come to the fore more than in the matter of gratuity; that is, Americans doing business abroad are being forced to ask the question: Where does local custom stop - and bribery begin?
It is not a question easily answered, particularly in the Latin American countries that share our hemisphere and some, but not all, of our European-based traditions. It is this similar-but-different aspect that makes it difficult for Norte Americanos doing business in Latin America to distinguish the grey line of difference between bribery and gratuity, custom and corruption.
When one travels to southeast Asia, Africa or the Middle East, the immediate differences in cultural orientation put the typical American businessman on the alert. "They think differently than I do," even the most culture-blind expatriate immediately perceives, "I had better be prepared." Not so easily does this preparedness translate itself to action with our Latin American neighbors. True, the fact that Spanish or Portuguese is ...