William Raftery
Competing In Global Business Environment
Dr. Nina Aversano
July 11, 2010

Case 1- Malawi Business Decision Against Corruption

Corruption is not just the clearly “bad” cases of government officials skimming off money for their own benefit. It includes cases where the systems don’t work well, and ordinary people are left in a bind, needing to give a bribe for the medicine or the
Licenses they need. Even if you don’t come direct with corruption it is still affects everyone. Corruption reduces wealth in a country because it will disclose business from operating there. In countries with high level of corruption like Malawi has a level of average income three times lower then your average country as ours being one of them. This hurts business because even if you think you can get around the corruption the government cant either because they now have lower cash flow to pay the good workers and purchase suppliers. Corruption as a whole harms the environment and undermines trust in government. So for a company operating in international surrounding with corrupt business practices I think is a huge problem and even though it is just an acceptable way of doing business in some parts of the world not something I would put my business into. For this case we see a company take the negative effects of corruption that are readily apparent and were willing to abstain from corrupt practice to make a personal gain from them. We see that corruption is widespread in Malawi but then with leadership from the private sector, a cross-societal coalition called Malawi Leaders Forum, government, private business, civil society, donor agencies and the media, all felt this was something that can be changed and a place where business could be successful.

The different approach being taken in Malawi that these companies where going to take and hope of successfully