A new look at ethics in international business

In many countries there are stated rules that gift-giving and solicitation in business practice are unethical and prohibited. However, except for the American FCPA, all the rules and guidelines seem to govern only domestic business practices and there are no clear-cut rules for international business practices in this respect. This study investigates gift-giving and solicitation in international business practice, using the data collected from 111 New Zealand international business firms. The research findings show variable conduct and contradictory attitudes. These findings suggest that, with the variety of ethical standards and levels of morality which exist in different cultures, neither Deontology nor Utilitarianism could be the answer to the dilemma of ethics and pragmatism that faces today's international business managers. Instead, “Culturalism,” as developed in this study, should be the guiding principle to international business ethics.     

Pygmalion effect: An issue for business education and ethics

This study reports the results of a survey designed to assess the impact of business education on the ethical beliefs of business students. The study examines the beliefs of graduate and undergraduate students about ethical behavior in educational settings. The investigation indicates that the behavior which students learn or perceive is required to succeed in business schools may run counter to the ethical sanctions of society and the business community. Michael S. Lane is Assistant Professor of Management at West Virginia University. He is the coauthor of An Integrated Approach to Curriculum Design/Redesign, Journal of Education for Business (1986), and Corporate Goals and Managerial Motivation, Mid-South Business Journal (1985).Dietrich Schaupp is Professor of Management at West Virginia University.Barbara Parsons is Assistant Professor of Commerce at Fairmont State College.     

Cross-national research and international business: An interdisciplinary path

Comparative cross-national research is among the oldest approaches of scientific inquiry in the social sciences. We investigate the foundations of published works in cross-national research (CNR) in international business (IB), sociology, and psychology with an eye on leveraging their rich traditions for future IB research. Our approach aims to contribute and address repeated calls for taking an interdisciplinary approach in IB. We examined published CNR in 106 scholarly journals and identified 817 articles with 51,738 citations in IB, 477 works with 30,017 citations in sociology, and 835 articles with 54,519 citations in psychology. We use metric multidimensional scaling to examine the co-citation data for each field and identify knowledge and approaches commonplace in sociology and psychology to propose future research paths in IB. In particular multilevel analysis, which is scarcely used in IB, offers the potential of unfolding new dimensions within the field. Based on the emergent results from our MDS solutions, we recommend multiple future paths for CNR, particularly with respect to IB relationships, market entry, and related domains.     

An international business blunder: Fennia 1913–16

In 1913 Otto Mønsted A/S, Denmark's leading margarine manufacturer, acquired a majority share in Fennia, a small and insignificant Finnish margarine company. The Danish company had extensive knowledge of all functional aspects of margarine, and had up to 1909 been a dominant player in the British margarine industry. In spite of the massive international experience that had been accumulated by Otto Mønsted A/S the Finnish venture turned into a disaster, because for all their experience the Danish managers committed an impressive range of failures. The work of N. Nohria and S. Ghoshal is applied to the case, and a theoretically consistent analysis is provided. The conclusion of the paper is that the analytical framework of Nohria and Ghoshal serves well in this respect. It is further shown that value-added chain analysis is useful in linking functional failures to a corporate governance perspective. In the final resort, World War I killed off the experiment, but it was doomed anyway. Almost 100 years have passed, but today managers have lessons to learn from this event.     

Coronavirus and international business: An entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective

Covid‐19 (Coronavirus) is a health pandemic that has significantly affected the global economy and fundamentally changed society. The impacts of coronavirus are most apparent at the international business level due to the restrictions on travel and mobility of labor. This has necessitated an entrepreneurial outlook for businesses in order to survive in the current market environment. The aim of this article is to discuss the implications of the coronavirus for international business by taking an entrepreneurial ecosystem point of view. This enables a reflection on how the pandemic has impacted various entities of the ecosystem in terms of stakeholder engagement. Suggestions for acting in a more dynamic and innovative manner are provided that highlight the importance of utilizing entrepreneurial ecosystems in times of crises.     

Theological ethics and business ethics

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique of business from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical.     

The business of ethics and the ethics of business

This is an essay in personal business ethics of executives as distinguished from the institutional ethics of corporations. Its purpose is to give practical moral guidance to executives for the conduct of their lives both as corporate decision-makers and as human beings. The pivotal concept in this model of personal business ethics is a direct appeal to the self-interest of executives in their being moral. Our thesis is that generally there is a twofold return on investment in ethics (ROIE) for executives. The first one is related to employee output: by becoming a self-actualizing moral type, executives indicate commitment to excellence. Accordingly, they so manage employees that the latter can also live up to their full potential and excell. And that would increase corporate productivity and product or service quality. The second payback of morality is personal: fully developed, self-actualized managers are generally happier people than those whose growth has been arrested. In brief, moral self-actualization is the same as commitment to excellence and there is a payback in being the best. Return on investment in ethics and return on investment in excellence can both be abbreviated as ROIE. We accomplish the purpose and establish the thesis of this essay by seeking answers to the following questions: What business does ethics have in business? What business does business have in ethics? Is there a return on investment in ethics for executives? and Does being moral help executives become more effective managers? In sketching answers to these questions, we first show why executives need a personal business ethics especially in today's world. Then, we sketch the nature of ethics and of business. After these introductory materials, the body of the paper argues for a personal business ethics for executives by correlating elements of management theory with ethics. Specifically, it links a theory of employee motivation with a scale of values, management character types with moral types, and management leadership styles with morality. Then, the practical technique of life by objectives (LBO) is explained. It can help executives manage their lives more effectively in both the business and ethical sense. We conclude by explaining ideals of excellence which can guide executives in their work and development both as managers and as human beings.     

Transatlantic business ethics

The Business Ethics Center of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences organized a Transatlantic Business Ethics Summit on September 15–17, 2000 in Budapest, Hungary. The Summit was sponsored by the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) and Procter & Gamble.
The main function of the Summit was to provide a forum for leading American and European scholars to explore the background theories and value bases of business ethics from the perspective of the 21st century. The participants reflected on the state of the art of business ethics as it has been practised in the USA and Europe; however, the future of business ethics as a discipline was the main focus of the Summit. Since business ethics is closely related to business and capitalism, some considerations of the 21st century economic, political, and social reality were presented too. The paper is based on and composed from the abstracts provided by the participants of the Transatlantic Business Ethics Summit. The abstract booklet can be obtained from Laszlo Zsolnai, the Convenor of the Summit.     

Teaching business ethics

Business ethics should be taught in business schools as an integrated part of core curricula in MBA programs with a dual focus on both analytical frameworks and their applications to the business disciplines. To overcome the reluctance of many faculty to handle ethical issues, a critical mass of faculty must develop suitable materials, educate their peers in its use, and take the lead by introducing it in their own courses and on senior management programs.Jeffrey Gandz is an Associate Professor in the School of Business Administration, The University of Western Ontario. Following ten years of management experience in Europe and North America, Professor Gandz completed his Ph.D. at York University. He is active as a mediator and arbitrator in labour disputes, teaches Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, and Labour Relations at Western, and has published widely in those fields.Nadine Hayes is a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Western Ontario and a graduate of Western's Honors Business Administration Program. She has written several case studies in the field of Business Ethics and has worked with Jeffrey Gandz in developing the School's approach to the teaching of business ethics.     

OIKOS: Convergence in business ethics

The current focus on corporate culture in managerial theory, on character development in business ethics, and on the work—family relationship in family studies calls for an integrating concept to help us explore the relationship of work, family, and fundamental values. The ancient Greek concept of the oikos offers a basic framework for understanding the ensemble of emotional commitments and faith values underlying ethical action in organizational life. Examination of the interrelationships among the arenas of work, family and faith directs us to the importance of ecclesiologies, faith concepts, and family forms for business ethics. William Johnson Everett is Associate Professor of Ecclesiology and Director of the OIKOS Project on Work, Family and Faith at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta. He is the author of many articles in social ethics as well as Blessed Be the Bond: Christian Perspectives on Marriage and Family (Fortress Press, 1985). He is co-author of Disciplines in Transformation: A Guide to Theology and the Behavioral Sciences (University Press of America, 1979).     

Implementing business ethics: Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is a problem for many organizations. Organizations must understand that sexual harassment lies within the broader context of sex discrimination and inequality of opportunity in the workplace. Sexual harassment is both an illegal and unethical practice. Companies need to implement a policy which respects the rights of individual employees by prohibiting sexual harassment. This policy need to be clearly stated in the company Code of Ethics and enforced rigorously.Karen A. Crain is a Territory Representative for Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories pharmaceutical company. She has published in a recent Proceeding of the International Conference of theAcademy of Business Administration.Kenneth A. Heischmidt is a Professor of Marketing at Southeast Missouri State University and has published in various professional journals and conferences includingJournal of Advertising, Journal of Professional Services Marketing, Journal of Hospital Marketing, Health Marketing Quarterly andJournal of Education for Business. He has received best paper awards at both the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Business Administration conferences.     

Professionalism: Foundation for business ethics

Professionalism includes the essential contents of other key notions within the field of business ethics. As a term involving the notion of vocation it may be understood as containing a religious content, since vocation refers to a man's most intimate personal decisions, destiny and providence. Professionalism also connotes respect for law and so includes a reference to commercial law as a guide to right conduct. Professionalsim thus lifts the requirements of law to the level of personal commitment.Like an honest act, professionalism may not be easy to define, but you will know it when you see it. As for professionalism's practitioners, like the practitioners of honesty, their art is learned not by seeking definitions of what they do, but by practicing professionalism. Only if this practice becomes an obsession with the Business Aristocracy can we expect professionalism to seize the soul of lesser businessmen and suffuse the entire business community. Thomas E. Schaefer, Ph. D., is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Texas, Permian Basin. He was formerly Head of the Department of Business Administration, University of Alaska, and Dean of Business Administration, Sacred Heart University, Puerto Rico. He has received a Private Sector Award of Pres. Reagan for Extraordinary Contributions to Small Business. His most important publications are: The Process of Management: What Supervisors Do (O.C. Press, 1982); Leadership Through Followership, Business Horizons (September/October, 1982) and many others.Paper presented at the 16th Conference on Value Inquiry, entitled: Ethics and the Market Place: An Exercise in Bridge-Building or On the Slopes of the Inteface.     

Meta-learning about business ethics: Building honorable business school communities

We propose extending business ethics education beyond the formal curriculum to the hidden curriculum where messages about ethics and values are implicitly sent and received. In this meta-learning approach, students learn by becoming active participants in an honorable business school community where real ethical issues are openly discussed and acted upon. When combined with formal ethics instruction, this meta-learning approach provides a framework for a proposed comprehensive program of business ethics education.Linda Klebe Trevino is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Mary Jean and Frank B. Smeal College of Business Administration, The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the management of ethical-unethical behavior in organizations and justice in disciplinary situations.Donald L. McCabe is Associate Professor of Management at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers — the State University of New Jersey. His research focuses on decision making and interpretive processes under conditions of uncertainty, and the management of ethical behavior in organizations.     

Perceptions of business ethics: Students vs. business people

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of business students and of business practitioners regarding ethics in business. A survey consisting of a series of brief ethical situations was completed by 537 senior business majors and 158 experienced business people. They responded to the situations, first, as they believed the typical business person would respond and, second, as they believed the ethical response would be.The results indicate that both students and business people perceived a significant gap between the ethical response to the given situations and the typical business person's response. Students were significantly more accepting than business people of questionable ethical responses, and they also had a more negative view of the ethics of business people than did the experienced business people.The male students were more accepting of questionable ethical responses and saw less difference between typical and ethical responses than did the female students. However, male and female business people appeared to think alike with regard to both typical and ethical responses.Some suggested implications included the idea that businesses need to increase their efforts to promote ethical conduct and to make ethics a well-known priority in all actions and policies. Barbara C. Cole teaches Business Education classes at Foothills Technical Institute in Searcy, Arkansas. Her research is in the areas of business ethics and cooperative learning. She has published in Journal of Education for Business.Dennie L. Smith is Professor of Education at the University of Memphis, formerly Memphis State University. His writing on creativity, teaching strategies, and simulation systems has appeared in numerous journals and books. He has been a consultant to businesses for over 15 years in the areas of organizational development and decision making.     

Christ and business: A typology for Christian business ethics

H. Richard Niebuhr's typology of the relation between Christ and culture can function as a heuristic device to identify different approaches to Christian business ethics. Five types are outlined: Christ Against Business, The Christ of Business, Christ Above Business, Christ and Business in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Business. This typology may facilitate discussion on the relative adequacy of various theological assumptions about ethical change in business. Louke Siker received her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1987 (dissertation: Interpreting Corporate Cultures: Philosophical and Theological Reasons for Doing Business Ethics in a Hermeneutical Mode). She has taught Christian ethics and business ethics at Wake Forest University and Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include methodology in business ethics. She is the author of An Unlikely Dialogue: Barth and Business Ethicists on Human Work, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1989.     

不夜城新崛起的国际商务中心——苏河一号：苏河湾首座HOPSCA概念城市综合体

内环内,首席滨河顶级商务中心! "苏河1号"雄踞苏河湾板块、恒丰路黄金商务大道要津位置,毗邻苏州河,与上海火车站隔路相望,是名副其实的大上海"陆上大门"建筑地标,同时也是以高端商务商业、滨河休闲旅游、文化创意展示等为主要特色的新滨河顶级商务中心,成为了该板块一个举足轻重的问鼎之作.     

Is there any ethics in business ethics

It is argued, against Richard T. De George, that while clarification of concepts, implications, and presuppositions in business ethics largely relies on a neutral territory of reason, determination of what moral intuitions are correct depends on non-neutral ethical theories. The latter posit ethics in business to varying degrees. Thus while the Kantian and utilitarian ethical theories are, for De George, proper (philosophical) approaches to business ethics, they are as reliant on affirming and encouraging moral sentiments outside parameters of pure reason as theological approaches. And hence if theological approaches can make no unique contribution by virtue of relying on more than reason or experience alone, then philosophical approaches can make no distinctive contribution either. Either both are viable or neither are. Oscillation between the mutually dependent notions of business ethics and ethics in business obfuscates what the field of business ethics is and renders De George's position inadequate.Robert Trundle, Jr., received his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northern Kentucky University where he teaches Business Ethics. He has worked at such companies as Stearns-Roger and Rogerson-Hiller Corporation where he was a member of the Hazardous Materials Safety Committee.