The International Business Ethics Index: Asian Emerging Economies

The systematic measurement of consumers’ sentiments toward business ethical practices is expanded to two emerging economies in Asia (China and India). The Chinese were very optimistic about the future ethical behavior of businesses, while the Indians recorded the lowest BEI scores yet. Chinese consumers were very concerned with product issues, while Indians were concerned equally about low quality products and excessive prices. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing. Tiger Li is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests are in the areas of international market entry strategies, product innovation, and organizational learning behavior. His articles have appeared in Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Education, and International Business Review.     

The International Business Ethics Index: Japan

The Business Ethics Index (BEI) was expanded in Japan. The overall BEI for Japan stands at 99.1 – slightly on the negative side. The component BEI patterns were similar to those in the U.S. In an open-ended question about their ethical experiences as consumers, the Japanese were concerned about customer service and good management practices. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing.     

Business Ethics Index: Measuring Consumer Sentiments Toward Business Ethical Practices

The present study describes the development of an ongoing and systematic index to measure consumers’ sentiments towards business ethical practices. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) is based on the well established measurements of consumer sentiments, namely the ICS (Index of Consumer Sentiment) and CBCCI (Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index). The BEI is comprised of 4 measurements representing the dimensions of “personal-vicarious” and “past-future.” Data from 503 telephone interviews were used to calculate a BEI of 107. This indicates an overall positive consumer sentiment towards the ethical behavior of business. Future calculations of the BEI are planned which will allow for the estimation of the latent dynamics of trends in consumer sentiments toward American business ethics.     

Business Ethics Index: USA 2006

This study continues the systematic measurement of consumers’ sentiments toward business ethical practices first measured in 2004. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) comprises the four measurements representing the dimensions of “personal–vicarious” and “past–future”. A professional telephone interviewing company was hired to collect five consecutive waves of 1045 telephone interviews in an omnibus procedure. The collection of the five waves represented a sampling process which enables the creation of confidence intervals for this, and subsequent, measurements of the BEI. The overall BEI fell to 102.6 (from a revized 108.7 in 2004). The drop was attributed to a fall in consumer expectations of the future ethical behavior of business. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing.     

Consumer Perceptions of Business Ethical Behavior in Former Eastern Block Countries

The Business Ethics Index (BEI), measuring consumer perceptions of ethical business behavior, was extended to four ex-communist countries (Russia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria). For Bulgaria, the two past dimensions are on the negative side of the scale. However, Bulgarians seem to be optimistic for the future ethical behavior of businesses. The same optimism about the future is observed for all four countries with Romania having the highest scores. Three hypotheses are proposed for the unusually high scores of the past ethical perceptions expressed by Russians.     

Toward a Model for International Business Ethics

This paper briefly examines the topic of business ethics and attempts to suggest a code of ethics for multinational firms. While most companies have basic policies on employee integrity, confidentiality and sexual harassment, relatively few have established policies regarding bribery, exploitive child labor, human rights violations and other issues they may encounter in the global market place (Drake, 1998). Until recently, very few companies had truly global operations. Consequently little attention was paid to the issue of ethical guidelines in a global context. Recent changes in international markets have led to an explosion of corporations with global operations, and the need for a global code of ethics has grown commensurately. In this paper we explore the issue of global business ethics and attempt to provide a framework for future discussion. We also examine some of the unique difficulties surrounding the development of any set of global business standards. Key among these difficulties is the issue of competing ethical values in home and host countries.     

Cultural Values and International Differences in Business Ethics

We analyze ethical policies of firms in industrialized countries and try to find out whether culture is a factor that plays a significant role in explaining country differences. We look into the firm’s human rights policy, its governance of bribery and corruption, and the comprehensiveness, implementation and communication of its codes of ethics. We use a dataset on ethical policies of almost 2,700 firms in 24 countries. We find that there are significant differences among ethical policies of firms headquartered in different countries. When we associate these ethical policies with Hofstede’s cultural indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. Bert Scholtens received his Ph.D. at the Universtiy of Amsterdam. Since 1999 he has been working at the Department of Finance of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research particularly looks into the interaction between financial institutions and corporate social responsibility. He has published in, among others, Ecological Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Finance Letters, Journal of Investing, Sustainable Development, and Journal of Business Ethics. Lammertjan Dam is a Ph.D. student at the Universtiy of Groningen. He expects to defend his thesis about the integration of corporate social responsibility in economic valuation in Summer 2007.     

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics

The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics (BE) is both a practical and theoretical issue. Unlike the traditional way of clarifying the relationship through identifying and comparing the extant definitions of the two terms, this study addresses and compares CSR and BE from three perspectives (basic concepts, academic fields, and social movements) in two analytical dimensions (in practice and in theory). This study indicates that: The relationship between the concept of CSR and BE is different from either the relationship between CSR as an academic field and BE as another academic field or the relationship between CSR as a movement and BE as another movement; within the relationships of the two concepts, fields and movements, the relationship between them in practice is different from that in theory; and CSR and BE are neither totally independent nor one of mutual inclusion, rather, they have similarities and differences.     

Business Ethics Curriculum Design: Suggestions and Illustrations

Designing business ethics teaching as anintegrated part of business school curriculashould start with a school-wide dialogue aboutgoals and working conditions. This articlesuggests different premises that can serve asnext steps to follow the school-widedialogue about goals and working conditions. The paper also provides several experienceswith offering business ethics modules withinother courses. Since the article is written asan invitation to a dialogue, assumptions andsuggestions are formulated in a discussionthesis format.     

Attitudes Toward Consumer and Business Ethics Among Canadian and New Zealand Business Students: An Assessment of 28 Scenarios

Recent initiatives in business curricula have included emphases on global business and ethics. This paper combines these issues by comparing the ethical predisposition of business students in New Zealand with their Canadian counterparts. A sample of 360 students indicated that students in both countries generally hold high expectations for the behaviour of both business and consumers. Of the 28 scenarios evaluated, five exhibited significant differences between the two groups. In four cases, students from New Zealand expressed less tolerance for the questionable business practices, and in the other one the situation was reversed. Despite the relative congruence of attitudes exhibited by the students of the two countries, the fact that differences do exist is testimony to the increased risk inherent to international business.     

Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A Comparison of Northern and Southern Views

There is a growing interest in understanding consumer ethical actions in relation to their dealings with firms. This paper examines whether there are differences between Northern and Southern European Union (EU) consumers' perceptions of ethical consumer behaviour using Muncy and Vitell's (1992) Consumer Ethics Scale (CES). The study samples 962 university students across four Northern EU countries (Germany, Denmark, Scotland, The Netherlands) and four Southern EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece). Some differences are identified between the two samples, which might question the ability of organisations to consider the EU as one homogeneous market.     

Ancient Observations on Business Ethics: Middle East Meets West

Drawing on a small sample of writings from distinguished philosophers and poets living in the Middle East in the period from the eighth to the first century BCE, it is shown that a variety of business practices provided familiar examples of how people ought to act and live, morally speaking, to enjoy the best sort of life and to be the best sort of person. The writings reveal that we share a common heritage and humanity with people living 20 to 28 hundred years ago, and that some of the observations are as important and useful today as they were when they were originally made.     

Teaching Business Ethics: A Case Study Of An Ethics Across The Curriculum Policy

The faculty within the undergraduate businessdepartment at Nova Southeastern University hasinstituted an Ethics Across The Curriculum Policy. This paper shares the steps the faculty followed inthe development and adoption of this policy. It isour hope that sharing our experiences concerning thispolicy implementation will help others consider asimilar policy. Recommendations are provided forpolicy development.     

Teaching Business Ethics: Targeted Outputs

Business ethics is once again a hot topic as examples of improper business practices that violate commonly accepted ethical norms are brought to our attention. With the increasing number of scandals business schools find themselves on the defensive in explaining what they are doing to help respond to the call to teach ‘‘more’’ business ethics. This paper focuses on two issues germane to business ethics teaching efforts: the ‘‘targeted output’’ goals of teaching business ethics and when in the curriculum business ethics should be taught.     

‘The Impact of Corporate Ethical Values and Enforcement of Ethical Codes on the Perceived Importance of Ethics in Business: A Comparison of U.S. and Spanish Managers’

This two country study examines the effect of corporate ethical values and enforcement of a code of ethics on perceptions of the role of ethics in the overall success of the firm. Additionally, the impact of organizational commitment and of individual variables such as ethical idealism and relativism was examined. The rationale for examining the perceived importance of the role of ethics in this manner is to determine the extent to which the organization itself can influence employee perceptions regarding ethics and social responsibility. Results indicate that all of the variables tested, except relativism, impacted upon one’s perceptions of the importance of ethics and social responsibility. Perceptions of the importance of ethics and social responsibility also varied depending upon country of residence with the U.S. sample having somewhat higher perceptions concerning the importance of ethics and social responsibility than their counterparts in Spain. Furthermore, when comparing the two samples, the U.S. sample had significantly higher corporate ethical values, greater enforcement of ethical codes, less organizational commitment and both lower idealism and relativism.     

A Business Ethics Experiential Learning Module: the Maryland Business School Experience

In this paper we describe the principal activities of the initial implementation in May of 1996 of one of the Experiential Learning Modules (ELMs) entitled Business Ethics (UMCP 1995, p. 7) that is part of the full-time MBA program at the College of Business and Management (Maryland Business School) of the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP). Additionally, we briefly consider the location of this Business Ethics ELM in the curriculum of the Maryland Business School's full-time MBA program. We also outline how the Business Ethics ELM was developed. Further, we provide a discussion and a short conclusion.     

Ethical Theory and Business Practices: The Case of Discourse Ethics

By focusing on the reasoned debate in the discourse-ethical approach to business ethics, this paper discusses the possibilities and limitations of moral reasoning as well as applied economic and business ethics. Business ethics, it is contended, can be looked at from the standpoint of two criteria: justification and application. These criteria are used to compare three approaches: the Integrative Business Ethics, developed by Swiss philosopher Peter Ulrich, the Cultural Business Ethics of the Nuremberg School in German business ethics, and the concept of “Good Conservation” by Frederick Bird. It is argued that discourse-ethical approaches can be called upon for justifying moral principles. Improving the chances of their application, however, necessitates a good understanding of lifeworlds and culturally developed institutional settings. Bearing this in mind, further research perspectives stressing a linkage between discourse-ethical and critical approaches in social sciences are suggested.Dr. Thomas Beschorner is head of the research group “Social Learning and Sustainability” at University of Oldenburg, Germany and currently Visiting-Professor at McGill University, Montreal, Canada     

Business Ethics Books: A Bookshop Survey

This paper discusses the extent to which books about business ethics are purchased or read outside of tertiary institutions in Australia, whether the subject is commonly perceived as business, philosophy or both, what range of business ethics books is commonly offered for purchase, and what conclusions might be drawn from the above considerations. Investigation shows that the range and availability of business ethics books is quite limited outside of tertiary institutions, and that the general perception is that business ethics is something which pertains specifically to business rather than to moral philosophy. It is likely that this tends to isolate the subject from philosophy as broadly conceived in the minds of business practitioners.     

The Ethics of the US Business Executive: A Study of Perceptions

Gallup Polls have reported on the perceived ethics of various professions in the US since 1976. Clergymen and pharmacists were consistently identified as two of the most ethical professionals in the 1980's and 1990's. Business executives have not fared well in these polls and have not been rated among the top ten most ethical professions in any of the years the poll was taken. Ethical codes have not done much to belay the perception that the US business executive is not very ethical. Whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will impact the ethical behavior of business executives remains to be seen.