What philosophical principles did Google’s managers adopt when deciding that the benefits of operating in China outweigh the costs?
After reading the case study, it becomes clear that Google’s managers used the utilitarian approach in order to get the benefits from the Chinese advertising market. The term “utilitarian approach” means that the company would perform such actions in a definite struggle that would give highest results in low costs. It is well known that China is the huge potential market for every product that is connected with the Internet; in case of Google Company it is the highly promising market that would bring huge profits for company. The main aim of the strong struggle of Google’s managers for definite Chinese market is connected to the biggest segment of customers that would bring company’s earnings that cannot be compared with any market company it is operating in. Google Company has used the government regulations in order to raise its profits by showing people how much information government censored. At the first sight it seems that Google was struggling for Human Rights of Chinese people, but looking deeply it becomes clear that it only benefited from this situation, earning lots of money. Therefore, it is clear that according to the Friedman doctrine the company had weighed the benefits and costs of the Chinese market entrance and according to the Cultural relativism, company has adopted the government regulations of China in order to run its business successfully.
Do you think that Google should have entered China and engaged in self-censorship, given the company’s long-standing mantra “Don’t be evil”? Is it better to engage in self-censorship than have government censor for you?
Google Company is a large international business. As it is the business, its main purpose is growing through the new products development and new markets entrance. The company has created such long-standing mantra in order to develop the specific market entrance strategy and successfully perform in the highly regulated China market. From the business point of view, this strategy was highly effective and it gave the chance to raise company’s profits. From the ethical point, such company’s entrance can be seen as the trial to make profit on the Chinese culture and laws. However, Google’s managers had raised the question of the people’s information usage freedom and their Human Rights. This question is very important and highly debatable in today’s world, because Chinese people are limited with information about the world and they are given only that news that the government wants them to know. According to this, Chinese government limits information for its people and Google changed this information by showing “the window” with sites and information that were censored by government. Google’s managers had raised company’s profit and give people chance to see the world as it is simultaneously. Therefore, this strategy seems quite positive for both Google and Chinese people.
If all foreign search engine companies declined to invest directly in China due to concerns over censorship, what do you think the result would be? Who would benefit most from this action? Who would lose the most?
According to the text of the case it is written that the Internet search engine “Baudi” is the main competitor of the Google in the Chinese market. After the research was made, it was found that local search engine “Baudi” occupies 75% of Chinese market and Google is working in the 23% of market, this follows that “Baudi” is a market leader of Chinese search engines. Therefore, after the Google high-sounding entrance the situation in the local market has not changed. As a result, if all foreign search engines companies have decided to stop direct investments into Chinese market it would not highly impact and change situation in China. Therefore, any search engine company does not have enough authority or power to impact and change the decisions of Chinese government to give people limited amount of information, facts and news. From this situation benefits such local search engines company as they have not strong foreign competitors and Chinese government as it would not have any problems with the information control. However, this situation is detriment for the Chinese people and its economy, because the Human Rights are broken and free market and competition limitation would restrain economic development of China.