Business Ethics in the Former Soviet Union: A Report

Transition from a planned command economy to a market economy means tearing down a socio-economic setting where everybody follows orders and nobody bears individual responsibility for anything. The absence of personal responsibility does not promote ethical behavior in any walk of life. Today, the malnourished business ethics in the former Soviet Union creates a critical obstacle to economic development. The paucity of new official rules governing the conduct of business makes the transition process painful and difficult to people habituated to numberless rules and regulations. The first part of this paper surveys the most visible unethical business practices that have been reported by the Western media and those that are causing the largest number of complaints by the local governments and businessmen. The second part of the paper looks at ethical problems that have been under-reported.