Cultural and Contextual Aspects in Business Ethics

Abstract

This conceptual paper reviews the literature on business ethics and reports prevailing controversies: (i) The Deontological/Teleological (Formalist Utilitarian), Controversy: Whether ethical values are absolute or are they judged by their consequences, (ii) The Universal/Relativist Controversy: Whether ethical values are primarily universal, shared by all cultures, or are they culturally bound, (iii) Does business ethics warrant study as a field of its own, and whether or not to teach ethics in business schools. Consequently, the paper addresses the dilemma of: what value judgment is to prevail in case of conflicting systems, the case inherent in global business. This taxonomy aims at providing a frame for a cross-cultural research currently being conducted in Scandinavia, China and in the Middle East.