Suppose you're the manager of a large German multinational company that operates in rural India where child labor is a long tradition. Should you accept that practice or should you withdraw from that market? Now we're going to look at another company, Bayer CropScience, and look at it through stakeholder theory. Bayer as you know is a large German chemical company, also does some drugs and it's most famous drug of course is aspirin which it sells over-the-counter. Many of you have probably used Bayer aspirin, or used some generic, it's copy of Bayer. So, we're going to talk now about their case, and then apply it to stakeholder theory. Now, this company always needs because it's a chemical company, it always needs new supplies. One of the things they really needed were cotton seeds. The best cotton seeds are grown in small farms all spread throughout India, and those farms are mostly owned by a company called CropScience. So, Bayer bought CropScience and Bayer had been in India, in other projects for some years, so it was familiar with the Indian and familiar with the Indian culture. So, it wasn't a complete quote, foreigner there but it was a natural choice to buy this and they have wonderful cotton seeds. Also, those cotton seeds now are grown through genetically modified seeds. Now, you may have some problems with genetically modified seeds, I know. But in places like India where there's so many bugs frankly that eat the seeds, it's only if you have genetically modified seeds that you have any chance of growing things. It turns out by distributing those seeds these farmers became very profitable and it was a very worthwhile project for the farmers, and of course worthwhile for Bayer. But after they bought CropScience, they discovered that the seeds were harvested by children beginning at the age five. It was practiced all throughout, all the farms. This wasn't just some farm, all the farms, it was a custom, an old custom that children would harvest the seeds. The problem is, was for Bayer is they had a global anti-child labor policy. It was in their mission statement, it was published, every employee knew about it, it was that they don't tolerate child labor at all, any place in the company, nor in their supply chain. So, anyone who like Crop Science who supply cotton seeds, that also applies to them. Well, all right, but what's interesting is that their employees then began to criticize them for buying a company that used child labor, and the media of course was all over this. This was just a terrible acquisition and they had to immediately sell CropScience. This is terrible and they were just merciless with their criticism of Bayer. So, although child labor is not tolerated at Bayer, it's a very old tradition, it's so old we don't know how old it is. It's been going on in Indian farms just as long as we have written history and probably before that. Now, the children aren't as I say, they don't go to school, sometimes they're treated badly, and sometimes they're not. So, should Bayer just acquiesce to this practice in order to get them cotton seeds or should it sell CropScience? If it sells CropScience and it still needs seeds, what is the guarantee the next company they buy the seeds from will not also use child labor? Actually nothing will guarantee that. So, they've got a child labor issue. The other solution their employees said, "Just ban child labor from these farms." Well, but how does that look to the farmers? Does that be perceived as some Western neo-colonialist company that's coming in and telling people what to do when they've been doing it for centuries? I think that's a very touchy situation. As you know, you're supposed to abandon an ancient custom you've been carrying on forever? Those are their issues.