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While most people have taken the time to define their personal morals, the concept of
business ethics has only recently begun to come under intense scrutiny.
After Enron was at the center of a scandal involving its irregular accounting practices in
2001, it seemed like a high profile business executive was in the news almost every day
being accused of greed, deceit, and corruption. In response to public outrage, the
business community at large began to focus more on encouraging ethical behavior.
Now, it is common for both large and small businesses to have a formalized listing of
ethical guidelines for employees to follow.

Naturally, any successful corporation must remain focused on earning a profit. With no
profit, the company loses value and the employees eventually lose their jobs. However,
business ethics do not allow a company to do whatever is necessary to make money.
Corporate social responsibility dictates that businesses must provide safe working
conditions and use manufacturing practices that do not unnecessarily harm the
environment. Business ethics also require that companies provide accurate financial
data to stockholders and avoid advertising their products and services to consumers
under false pretenses.

The study of business ethics is sometimes referred to as applied ethics because it

attempts to translate utilitarianism, social contract theory, deontology, and other
theoretical principles into acceptable rules for conduct in various real world situations. At
the college level, many schools now have programs to encourage students to develop
an awareness of business ethics. These classes typically use case studies as the basis
for discussions on what constitutes ethical behavior. Lower level classes are sometimes
required for an undergraduate business degree, while students working towards
an MBA may be able to specialize in leadership and business ethics. While many
people do feel classes discussing ethics are beneficial, others say it¶s hard to predict
how students will behave once they are out of school and into the working world.

To some extent, the government can regulate ethical behavior by passing laws that
require businesses to take certain actions. In many ways, however, professional
organizations may be the best equipped to impart a sense of business ethics onto a
particular industry. Organizations such as the Public Relations Society of America, the
National Independent Automobile Dealers Association, the Chartered Property Casualty
Underwriters Society, and the National Association of Realtors have codes of ethical
behavior that members are required to follow and provide regular training events that
help encourage open discussions of business ethics.

The profession of business ethics has long needed a highly practical resource that is
designed particularly for leaders and managers -- those people charged to ensure
ethical practices in their organizations. Unfortunately, far too many resources about
business ethics end up being designed primarily for philosophers, academics and social
critics. As a result, leaders and managers struggle to really be able to make use of the
resources at all.
Also, far too many resources about business ethics contain sensationalistic stories
about businesses "gone bad" or prolonged preaching to businesses to "do the right
thing". These resources often explore simplistic ethical questions, such as "Should Jane
steal from the company?" The real world of leaders and managers is often much more
complex than that.

This guide is a straightforward and highly practical tool designed to help leaders and
managers implement comprehensive ethics management systems in their workplaces --
systems to deal with the complex, ethical issues that can occur in the day-to-day
realities of leading and managing an organization.

International business ethics has a number of open questions and dilemmas. Today it is
characterized by the following elements:

‡ Every culture and nation has its own values, history, customs and traditions, thus it
has developed own ethical values and understanding of ethical principles;
‡ There is no international ethical code of conduct, accepted and followed by all the
countries;
‡ There is a lack of governments¶ initiative to create ethical cooperation framework and
thus to enhance ethical behavior in international business;
‡ It is hard to outline those ethical values which would be understandable, acceptable
and important for representatives of all the continents simultaneously within different
types of international cooperation projects.

Financial crisis of 2007-2008 underlined importance of ethical behavior. It is no longer

enough to be knowledgeable and experienced in a particular domain, in order to act
professionally. Professionalism also consists in ethical behavior, honesty, compliance
and integrity. How to ensure such a working style at all times in long-term and why it is
necessary to do so?

First of all, ethical behavior combined with skills and professionalism is able to ensure
sustainable development, rather than a short-term profit, which brings disastrous results
after a certain period of time. Ethical behavior ensures awareness and concern for the
future and for the right way of action in each particular situation. Secondly, ethical
behavior establishes a healthy and pleasant cooperation climate for all the parties
involved in a deal, making them feel comfortable with each other. Thirdly, acting in
accordance with moral values is crucial for deserving clients¶ attention and support and
achieving a significant competitive advantage in a particular market segment.

So, after having identified that ethics is a must in international business, let us pass to a
more complicated domain ± how to implement ethical behavior in practice in long term.
Should an individual follow one¶s own ethical convictions, in order to act ethically in
international business? Should every company create its ethical code of conduct and
monitor its employees¶ compliance at all times? If so, how to achieve it? And what
happens when two individuals or two companies with different codes of conduct meet
for cooperation? How to ensure ethical behavior, in case ethical values and principles
do not coincide?

These are very important questions, which business and academic world participants
have been trying to answer for long years. As anything else in business, it is not always
possible to find out a single 100% right answer to every question. Everyone proposes its
personal point of view, based upon research, perception, understandings, experiments
and experience.

Having read a significant number of books and academic articles on this topic, having
cooperated with individuals and corporate bodies from different countries of all the
world¶s continents, I suggest the following approach to international business ethics:

‡ Every individual and every corporate body must outline its ethical values;
‡ Every individual and company should ensure understanding of ethical values and
belief in their effectiveness and importance;
‡ Employees of every organization must participate in creating a corporate code of
conduct, which in this case definitely represents corporate culture, rather than only
personal views of a company¶s leader;
‡ Every individual and company must monitor compliance with the outlined values at all
times;
‡ All the ethical values must be divided in two categories ± rigid and flexible. Rigid are
those values which cannot be renounced under any circumstances (honesty, integrity,
professionalism), and flexible ones, which are those moral principles which may be
interpreted in different ways in different situations (will to understand other cultures¶
values, remuneration policies).

In such a way, when foreign bodies with different ethical codes of conduct meet, they
are able to create an effective common ethical cooperation framework, keeping rigid
values unchanged and adapting flexible moral principles. Such an approach is able to
ensure every involved party¶s accordance and satisfaction with the created ethical
cooperation framework for that particular project without violating personal convictions.

Submitted by ± Aasim choudhary (09BS0000018)