Responsibilities of Management in International Business within Essay

Responsibilities of Management in International Business within Lockheed Martin - Essay Example In the process, despite a well-published code of ethics, Lockheed Martin's history is not exactly a good example of managerial experience. Domain of business. Lockheed Martin is an arms manufacturer said to be one of the world's largest and most influential corporations. Three of its many focus areas are weapons systems, social services, and homeland security. (Polaris Institute, n.d.). Having profiled the corporation "to provide information to activists and citizens concerned with the power Lockheed Martin wields over their lives and the lives of others" Polaris Institute (n.d.) says Lockheed Martin is one of the most politically connected corporations in the world. With its focus on high technology, it was able to get involved with the US Postal Service, the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration, and the Transportation and Security Administration among others, it said. Sales. In 2003, Lockheed Martin was said to report sales of $31.8 billion, some $3.2 billion of which came from its information and technology (IT) services division. Of that amount, 40 percent came from defense services, 37 percent from IT and 23 percent from NASA. As reported by Arthur Johnson, Lockheed Martin's senior vice president of corporate strategic development, IT sales make about a quarter of Lockheed Martin's revenue, most of which comes from the federal government(Gerin 2004). All in all, seventy eight percent of this business was with the United States Government and 18% of the corporation's sales are from their international customers (Polaris Institute, n.d.) Last year, sales for the first six months rose to 17.8 billion dollars from 17.1 billion dollars, despite a drop in deliveries of F-16 fighter jets. For 2005, this biggest U.S. Defense contractor and top seller of secure computer systems saw net profit jump 41 per cent to 830 million dollars in the first six months (Bauer 2005). Also strong on missile defences, Lockheed Martin's integrated electronic combat systems and military space programmes projects 2005 sales of up to 38 billion dollars (Ibid.). III. Business Ethics Lockheed Martin that specializes in a host of products and services for the federal government has dramatically raised its ethics and business conduct program since the mega-corporation merger in 1995. With 65 "ethics officers" around the United States, it requires its 130,000 employees to devote at least an hour a year to consider the ethical issues of the business, at a cost of millions of dollars per year (Terris 2005). History of lawsuits. Lockheed Martin is said to have a long list of lawsuits and controversies, one of where the company paid $38 million to settle claims for their alleged failure in providing complete and accurate cost in bidding for a large foreign military sales contract (Polaris institute, n.d). Following a series of bribery, overcharging, and corruption scandals in the 1970s and 1980s, it formed its ethics program (Terris 2005). When interviewed in Ethically Speaking: News from The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University, Terris who wrote a case study on Lockheed Martin Corporation. was said to comment: "If U.S. corporations are spending millions of dolla