In an organisational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing worker productivity, and tough competition, many employees feel pressured to engage in questionable practices. Members of organisations are increasingly finding themselves facing dilemmas in which they are required to define right and wrong conduct. Organisations have a responsibility to provide employees with jobs that are challenging and intrinsically rewarding. Examples of decisions employees might have to make are: · "Blowing the whistle" on illegal or unethical activities · Following orders with which they do not personally agree - the orders are against their individual values · Possibly giving inflated performance evaluations that could save an employee's job · Playing politics to help with career advancement, etc. Organisations are responding to this issue by: · Writing and distributing codes of ethics · Providing in-house advisors · Creating protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal unethical practices However, the challenges become increasingly more complex when it comes to engaging in business at different locations with diverse jurisdictions, legal, social, cultural and moral values. THE ASSESSMENT TOPIC: A few years ago, IBM announced that it had fired the three top managers of its Argentine division because of their involvement in a scheme to secure a $250 million contract for IBM to provide and service the computers of one of Argentina's largest state-owned banks. The three executives paid $14 million of the contract money to a third company, CCR, which paid nearly $6 million to phantom companies. This $6 million was then used to bribe the bank executives who agreed to give IBM the contract. These bribes are not necessarily illegal under Argentine law. Moreover, the three managers argued that all companies have to pay bribes to get new business contracts, and they were not doing anything that managers in other companies were not. (Source: Jones and George (2014) Page 258) IBM had just appointed YOU a consultant with the following tasks: (1) Based on the above scenario, you are required to write an individual report. This report needs to: a. Provide IBM with a brief literature review of the management and organisational behaviour theories including the latest relating to this issue. b. Provide IBM with a set of guides, deriving from these theories, on how best to deal with their foreign divisions in Asia (Indonesia and Australia), and European Union (UK and Germany) establishing a comparison between your findings in these two continents, specifically in these four countries from these two continents. One of the questions that they posed to you in their brief: · Would IBM allow their foreign divisions to pay bribes if all other companies in this foreign location are doing so? Thus, your report will mainly respond to this question through an analysis of the management and organisational behaviour theories, the comparison between your findings in the four countries (in the two continents) identified above and the set of guidelines that you will provide them with (hint, you need to have at least TEN points in these guidelines). Please note that these guidelines do not only need to be legal but go beyond to look at the triple bottom line of the company of people, planet and profit. For this report you need to conduct a research with regards to bribery (tolerance/intolerance, bribes being legal or illegal, providing one example of bribery in each country under investigation and what was the outcome for the organisation or the manager/s involved). Your report should commence by providing a background on management and organisational behaviour theories, providing a blue print for IBM to use for their branches in the foreign locations identified above. This is a suggested template for your report which needs to include the following sections: 1. Letter of transmittal 2. Executive Summary 3. Table of Contents 4. Introduction 5. Background and Literature 6. Methodology 7. Results 8. Analysis and discussion 9. Conclusion and recommendation 10.Your personal reflection on your journey of research and write up. 11.References 12.Appendices (if applicable) This report should be about 3,000 words +/- 10%. Please note that the executive summary, appendices (if you are enclosing any) and the reference list are outside this word count: The report must conform to the guidelines for written assessments as well as to rigorous academic standards, especially with regards to referencing. You will be assessed on the quality of your sources of information, how well you have used these resources to support your arguments, and your referencing skills. You need to adhere to the requirements of Chicago 16 style referencing for in-text citation and reference list to acknowledge your sources. You are expected to use a diverse base of sources. The use of Wikipedia is not permitted. At the postgraduate level, you are expected to have included at least 15 sources 75% of these sources need to be peer-reviewed journal articles others to be derived from other sources that you might find useful for the specific purpose of this report (e.g. books, professional magazines, government websites, stock exchange websites etc...). Please note that our assessment will not only look into the number of references, but will look into how you used these references in your report. Please note that the look and feel of your report will be important – you are a consultant who would be presenting the report to IBM. So, the professional look would add value to your report. Use your imagination with the tables, figures, and graphs.