Bribery is an unethical act that occurs when one person

Instruction: You will reply to 2 classmates. Every reply should meet the word requirements on the rubric and should advance the conversation further by providing new ideas and insights, asking probing questions that get to the heart of critical issues, and share from one’s personal and professional experience.  For the purposes of citations, every reply must include:
A minimum of 3 references (per reply)
At least 2 of the 3 references from a scholarly article
At least 1 of the 3 references from a relevant business article (any article from a reputable business source—website, magazine, book, etc.—that discusses a relevant business/ethical issue)
Remember to provide new ideas, research, and analysis that create a clear dialogue with your classmate’s ideas. Go beyond providing basic definitions to topics being discussed—that is information that should have been provided in the original post. Your replies should not read as just another thread, nor should it merely regurgitate and restate what your classmate has said, or what you said in your own thread from the week before, for that matter.
Discussion Post: Discussion Thread: Bribery
There are many examples of unethical activities in the political and international contexts. In this discussion, I will explain what bribery is, how common the practice is, and where it is found.
Bribery
Bribery can generally be defined as an act that one initiates to another in an effort to influence a desired result. “Bribery, like lying is not a value neutral concept. It has a negative connotation and is regarded by most as generally, although not necessarily universally, wrong” (Pritchard, 1998, pp. 281-286). To further expand on this, in the political and international context, bribery could be actions that influence public policy, global trade agreements and other forms of multinational agreements.
The action of bribery is both unethical as well as dangerous. From an ethical position, conflict of interest policies exists to deter this type of action. However, even with control measures in place, conflicts of interest occur. Moreover, in an international forum, bribery efforts can impact multiple nations. If a group is successful in their efforts to bribe a multinational company into changing their processes or maybe selecting a certain product or proprietary process, the impacts could be felt in all other countries where their business occurs. Therefore, the pure nature of bribery is extremely dangerous in many ways.
Common Practice
Unfortunately, bribery can occur in all business and political settings. Both public and private sector business models have exposure to bribery as well as all levels of government. In some cases, a target audience is sought after based on their vulnerability. “Based on World Bank data from emerging economies spanning from 2006 to 2018, we find that the interaction between lower quality market-supporting institutions and firm’s weaker positions makes firms more vulnerable to bribery requests, consequently leading to their involvement in bribery” (Seong-Jin Choi et al., 2021, pp. 1-38). However, vulnerability is not the only factor. Another example is utilizing your power or position as a bribery mechanism for gain. “An example of these projects is real estate development in many countries” (Li, 2019, pp. 5-8).
With the understanding that bribery can occur at any political level and within any business model, the opportunities for bribery are ever present. Furthermore, to some degree, it would be safe to say that the occurrence of such acts, in one degree or another, are on a regular basis and not isolated or unique events. In this regard, “A European Commission study estimated that 12.5% of public procurement contracts are corrupt, 37.5% bear the hallmarks of corruption and the average loss to corruption is 3.65%” (Button et al., 2019). With these statistics provide information that should be extremely concerning to all and open our perspectives on the regular occurrences of bribery.
Examples
Although the act of bribery can be found in all areas of the world and there is no social or economic class that is immune, the most common examples are in the form of a financial gain. “In 2013, the World Bank suspended financing for the construction of the Padma Multi-Purpose Bridge in Bangladesh following allegations of massive payoffs from SNC-Lavalin Group (Canada) to several Bangladeshi officials and politicians” (Yeager et al., 2021, pp. 341-355).
As previously discussed, financial scenarios are not the only circumstances where bribery occurs. However, they are believed to be the most common and most prevalent as financial gain, direct or indirect, can be linked to a majority of bribery efforts and actions.
Conclusion
Bribery is an unethical act that occurs when one person or group tries to influence the actions of another person or group. Furthermore, we have seen acts of bribery dating all the way back to when Jesus walked the earth. In the book of Matthew, there was a plot against Jesus where Judas was bribed into delivering Jesus for a silver. “and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver” (English Standard Version Bible, 2016). It is important that we uphold our moral and ethical framework and do not fall into the traps of bribery. There will always be someone or a group that does not share your biblical foundation or beliefs and will use their weaknesses to try and extort you actions and decisions to receive a personal or professional gain.