Unethical or merely the cost of doing business..?

Whilst overseas and speaking with a group of twelve MBA students, I posed the hypothetical question “You run a business and are tendering for a new contract. It becomes apparent to you that the managing director of the company that has tendered out the contract has a real weakness for expensive meals. In order to provide your organisation with the best chance of being successful, do you take the managing director out for a lavish dinner?” Unanimously it was considered perfectly fine to do this. I then asked the question “Let’s say that instead of having a weakness for expensive meals the managing director had a weakness for expensive gifts. Is it ok to buy them such a gift instead of taking them out for a meal?” With three exceptions it was considered that this too was acceptable. Taking this one step further I posed the following question to those nine students who had felt that gift – buying had been acceptable “What if you couldn’t decide on what gift to buy… Would it be ok to simply give the managing director cash to the value of the gift that you were going to purchase?”… Unanimously the answer came back that this was completely unnaceptable. Recently I posed the questions above to a group of fifteen business professionals in another country and surprisingly, all considered that providing a gift of cash was merely the cost of doing business and some could also provide examples of this having occurred within organisations that they had been associated with. I found this difference of opinion very interesting and somewhat surprising. So… In this scenario where do you draw the line? Is there a line? Perhaps it isn’t all that simple a question… Whatever your view – I’d welcome your comments and questions, please discuss. Andy.