Given how this is so common in the business landscape when it comes to high priced bids like Real Estate, Construction, and Manufacturing. I wonder out loud are we the only ones not paying a bribe.
There was a certain revelation about the practices of X that basically shook us to the core, and explained many victories. I though bribery was something you do to grease the wheels in Gov’t, but surprisingly it happens often enough in large private firms as to really makes me reconsider my world views.
I do have a hypothesis: it is that bribery occurs when there are too many competitors and the playing field has too many similar companies.
But bribery is easy, any time there is a human element that affects approval or the input of metrics you can set up a special deal with that person to influence to course of events. that bribed person only needs to run interference, plant doubt, or feed Intel to the side who has won them over.
It is hard to prove or detect. One of the biggest briberies I’ve heard about is easily kept secret because the company is so big, that they would rather sweep $60,000.00 under the rug than clear up the matter. there are some companies that are so big, that they cannot afford the scandal of a clean up.
Also note that Directors/VPs at the executive level in the Philippines are made up of Family, people related by blood, marriage, and Fraternities. Not only can’t you audit your own people, without insulting their honor. Investigation or Witch-Hunts are something that can kill the management of powerful company as well. It just shuts down everything, and the opportunity costs of pursuing may be just to high, and can be made higher by a party actively evading by tying up more costs at the audit.
In an airsoft game recently, I am reminded about how the correct information can stare me at the face and yet I fail to act on it. An airsofter doctor said the wound to my friend was not caused by a BB but the BB hitting the visor, which should be investigated. I should have called for a Chronometer test on all the guns but didn’t.
Even if the information is staring the leader in the face people fail to act on it. Especially when there are forces that make them want to ignore it and it is an inconvenience.
I get why certain managements have a very strict ethics standard for their board and management. I also get how difficult that is, and often enough no group can meet such. the self interest of a company to make sure that no-one is getting kick-back for certain company projects can only influence the chances but cannot influence the capability of a person from seeking a kickback.
I guess a Paranoid Biz owner would be the type to have their own intelligence unit, carefully and silently tracking his people and even his friends. When you hit Taipan level this is a necessary expense, below that level you only have a few trusted people who are skeptical, experience, alert and very perceptive to help you. At the lower level, its your own nature and studies that will protect you.
I mean, at my level all i have is my team and my own study into criminology from dummy books, critical thinking and analysis books, cognition and behavioral science books, and RPG mystery and criminology books (GURPS mysteries by lisa j steele)… and of course my parents and uncles.
All those law and order episodes and mysteries can help… if only for the process of investigation.
Given how the system is easily set up for bribes, I wonder at times if we are the only ones not bribing. Heck, the way Brokers work makes you wonder where the line is drawn.
Echoing the basic rule: If this is how the landscape is set up, plan how to get out of it or to change it. If money was only easy to make Leaving a “bad business landscape” would be an EASY decision… but it isn’t… especially if your strapped for cash. (The upgrades and skill levels I was planning to move to is going to cost 11-13M php or $310k… so definitely a very expensive can’t 🙁
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