The Ethical Dilemmas of Outsourcing free essay sample

Outsourcing nowadays has become a global phenomenon and a key player in a lot of businesses around the world. Yet, at the same time, many questions have arisen about the negative impacts of such practice and more and more businesses have to face the dilemma of outsourcing their work at the cost of its ethical consequences. The recent downturn in global economy has put more pressure on companies to cut their cost while doing business. Numerous corporations in big countries such as US, UK have been driven to begin outsourcing and offshoring work to other countries such as India, China, Vietnam and others where the cost of labor is significantly lower. By doing so, they can be able to survive and increase profits. However, the cost of this practice is not low at all and it is criticized as an unethical practice which causes losing majority of local jobs, violating privacy of personal information and possible identity theft as well as creating bad work conditions in host countries, etc. We will write a custom essay sample on The Ethical Dilemmas of Outsourcing or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Recent years, many technology giants in US such as IBM, Microsoft, HP, etc. have been steadily reducing the number of workers based in the US and shifting their work to India and other countries. While outsourcing allows these companies to cut costs and save billions of dollars, more and more US people are displaced from jobs by foreign workers. It is a serious ethical issue when these US people, who paid for their education through savings, loans, and grants, and are then denied the opportunity of earning in their homeland because the career opportunity is given to a foreign person, and then they have to be re-trained for other jobs. Not only are the US people affected by outsourcing in career and future earnings, but their sense of security is affected too. Many CPA firms in US outsource the tax preparation work to India but rarely inform their client of this practice. This is unacceptable from ethical point of view since a client must have a right to know that their personal and tax information is being transmitted overseas for processing and prepared by a non-US CPA and a right to choose whether to use this approach or not. Another ethical concern is about bad work conditions caused by outsourcing, whether it is a direct or indirect effect. The tragedy of the Foxconn sweatshop is one of the painful repercussions. Inside this Chinese factory manufacturing products for Apple, Dell, HP, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia and Sony, workers are forced to stand for 24 hours, work overtime excessively without a single day off during the week, live together in crowded dorms and exposure to dangerous chemicals, etc. causing dozen of employees committed suicide. It is obvious that in a changing world today, improving business ethical behaviors and its social responsibilities has become more urgent and necessary than ever.