As manufacturing becomes increasingly oblivious of where one country stops and another begins, the responsibilities of quality managers have extended beyond the safely measurable and into the loosely regulated wilds of global competition. Quality control now requires a sense of how different cultures perceive the art of doing business. (Hint: It’s not always about teamwork and doing the right thing.)

Humans being humans, what prevents a supply broker, for instance, from taking a bribe and passing a defective shipment of goods out the door? Mostly his conscience and a few lofty regulations written in languages he doesn’t understand. Can quality and risk professionals thousands of miles away prevent bribery? Not really. But they can make a point of staying informed about the ever-morphing ways in which bribery flourishes, and about the successful responses to it on the part of corporations, regulators, and government bodies.

 …