Essay on earning a graduate degree in Engineering Management

            After earning a graduate degree in Engineering Management, Ashton began working for PDRC International. This is a company based in the U.S. which offers engineering, design, and construction services to countries all over the world.

Ashton’s work is focused on international development; her first assignment is to lead a team to develop a bid for a highway construction project in East Africa. After the engineering proposal is submitted, Ashton is proud of the work her team has accomplished and promises her manager she will do everything possible to make sure that PDRC receives the contract.

PDRC’s bid is well-received, and Ashton and her team are flown to East Africa to finish negotiations. Ashton is thrilled when her company receives the bid; the only stipulation is that they build their construction headquarters in a specific region in the country. Ashton then begins scouting the region for a location to build their headquarters.

In order to obtain building permits in the region, Ashton has to negotiate with the local government. As she begins negotiations, she realizes that bribery is both a common and expected practice. If she does not bribe the local officials, she will not be able to build PDRC’s headquarters in that region and consequently will lose the contract; her first managerial project will be a failure. However, it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to bribe a foreign official in order to obtain business; if she is caught for bribery, she could face jail time and her company could be fined millions of dollars.

What should she do?

        Ashton is a very good and intelligent engineer and wants to explore its skills and training in better way. She always try to give more focus on such projects that are belong to international development. She employed in PDRC international that are pure construction company that provide all of its services related to construction sector all over the world. Construction is very vast field. People who related with these fields can generate revenue in large amount .in infrastructure investment; losses have unique significance the reason is that infrastructure is consider the basis in every human development and economic growth. Here are features that promote the corruption in the construction sector; investment of scale in infrastructure, concealed work and labour at site of construction, bureaucracy at official level, uniqueness of projects and chain of complex transactions in the projects. (matthews, 2016)

             the company of Ashton get a project to develop a high way in east Africa. This is a very major project and after proper bidding, company gets this project. Ashton becomes the head of this project and she is very much excited about this project. She gives assurance to all its management that they complete their project in most effective way and with most reasonable budgets. In east Africa, Ashton and her team has to move to completing the bidding process and further negotiations. But there is one problem that is going to appear that a headquarter must be build in that region where the project going to be started. Because this is the main specification for developing project so company has to built its headquarter in that region. Ashton start its efforts in getting a location for their headquarter. For this purpose, she starts negotiation with the government of that area. But she becomes disappoint when she saw that bribery is become the part of business and become very common in every step. All officers only give permission when they receive the bribery. She becomes very much worried because in U.S. it was consider illegal to give and take bribery and company get punished in this regard. She told all the current scenario to its management in the head office and give them information about all the situation. The management considers all the issues and directly contact with the permission officers through government. Because bribery is an illegal action so no one can openly confess about this act. Bribery can damage the construction sector in many dimensions like individual damaging through reducing imprisonment, fines, prosecution, criminal and morale. It effects the companies by wasted tended expense,uncertainity in tendering, damage at economic level, project costs going to be increased, blackmail and extortion,blak listing, fines, reputational risk, opportunities of project going to decrease. Making unnecessary projects, overpriced, unreliable and dangerous that cause damage of economy, poverty, underdevelopment and loss of life.  Then Ashton give a suggestion that in our headquarter this amount will consider as expense in its accounts and in east Africa that amount will give to officers. Because this is a very big project and company can earn revenues many years after making this highway. This would be most reasonable solution of this problem because such projects are very much important for the reputation of the organization or company and their long term source of income will be arranged by completing this project. In construction sector, there is lot of bribery involve in every step and people are very much concern to earn money through illegal resources. But transparency international consider that if all the participants in the project of construction are co-operate in the implementation and development of anti corruption actions then in construction projects corruption can be eliminated. The participants of construction projects are suppliers, consultants, contractors, project owners, funders and also government. TI use PACS standards that promote measures of anti corruption that utilize in the projects and templates that give better and effective tools for implementation standards. (transparency.org, 2005)

             The expenses of the company must be consider and ashton try to resolve this issue through involving governments of both countries but legally that is not a easy task to accomplish. Engineers also take many advantages in such type of situation but Ashton want to resolve this issue legally. Because at that time of audit, this expense which is in a large quantity will be opened and investigated by audit teams and at that time the image of company going to destroy and they also have to face too much punishment and their reputation of many years going to be vanished and they never get any further project . so governments may involve to resolve this matter at legal basis and PCRC may construct their headquarter in the east Africa for preparing the project.

Bribery is become the part of construction sector and the losses through corruption going to increase from 10% to 30%. Different aspects are very much important in this regard like integrity cost belong to projects, due diligence provide no space for poor or wrong work with corruption, construction sector must follow their code of conduct and practices, uniqueness  of projects and many other elements. The sizes of the projects are also effected due to corruption. So at the end the construction sector include lot of bribery and problems but proper methodologies and strategies are very much important in this regard. (Carraro, 2017)

Reference of earning a graduate degree in Engineering Management:

Carraro, B. (2017, january 26). Why is Construction so Prone to Corruption? Retrieved from https://geniebelt.com/blog/construction-prone-corruption

matthews, p. (2016, february 04). This is why construction is so corrupt. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/why-is-the-construction-industry-so-corrupt-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

transparency.org. (2005, feb 20). PREVENTING CORRUPTION ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS. Retrieved from https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/preventing_corruption_on_construction_projects