Must Bribery Always Be Unethical?

This paper delves into the issue of corruption and business ethics with the intention of exploring if there are cases in which paying a bribe by a business leader might be potentially justifiable and ethically acceptable. It does so by, first, defining corruption and bribery and then providing some ethical theoretical background. It then adopts Philp’s (2006) model of corruption to analyse four case studies where the unit of analysis is an incident of attempted bribery. It concludes by broadening the definition of corruption and arguing that, from a not implausible ethical perspective, the business leader might be doing the right thing by paying a bribe.