“Failure to live up to this Code may result in termination”
By Steve | July 12, 2007
Most Codes out there—including the many we have helped write—often have a phrase like “Violations of the standards in this Code may result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.” By this we have always meant “termination of employment.”
The Chinese have a different interpretation. They mean termination as in “The Terminator.” The title in a story from the July 10, 2007 New York Times says it all: China executes former food and drug regulator.
This is not the first time the Chinese government has attempted to send a message that corruption was punishable by death. Last year four bank employees were executed. And yet Transparency International (link) lists China as #70 in the perceptions of corruption index, behind clean countries like Thailand and Columbia.
One would think that the threat of execution would diminish corruption greatly. Research in the U.S., however, finds that the likelihood of major punishment is more of a deterrent than the magnitude of such punishment. That is, if there is a 90% chance that I will be jailed for committing a crime, that is much more dissuasive than a .01% chance I will be executed.
And that’s the problem in China. Taking bribes is seen as a low risk, high reward endeavor. And heretofore there has been little social disapproval to exert informal control.
Which brings us back to your company. Do employees believe that those who do something wrong receive discipline? (Not necessarily termination, in either sense of the word . . .)