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Business ethics across the globe
Though initially a Western (or more particularly, a North American) product, business ethics, both as theory and practice, has expanded across the world to encompass different economies, political systems and cultures. One might view this expansion, following on Part VII, as triggered by the increasing presence and practice of multinational corporations worldwide. However, the world contains distinct economic and political realities each with distinctive histories and traditions, so the broadened compass of business ethics must confront a diversity of experience. It is therefore natural that different countries or geographical regions will manifest distinct challenges and business ethics may therefore assume distinct profiles, even as some core ideas remain the same. The chapters in this section of the volume cover the theory and practice of business ethics across the non-Western part of the world, particularly in China, South Asia, and Africa, as well as in the nations of Latin America, and Central Europe and Russia.
In Chapter 35, Business ethics in China, Yuqiao Xiang tracks the relatively late introduction and gradual growth of business ethics in China as a result of the deliberate adoption of the new economic model of a socialist market economy. Given China’s history in the second half of the twentieth century, business ethics could not be anything but a latecomer to business—a welcome consequence of the recent official process of “reform and opening-up” that ushered in China’s modern era and replaced the erstwhile centralized economy. Although business ethics is a modern development, some aspects of China’s longstanding tradition in moral philosophy may be of relevance today. Tracking the contemporary history of academic business ethics in China, Xiang showcases its major protagonists and brings to the reader’s attention novel themes, special concepts, and notable critical stances as developed by contemporary Chinese scholars. An interesting, probably unique, feature of the way business ethics has developed in China is the phenomenon of wealthy businesspersons who are actively engaged in the teaching and practice of business ethics.
S. Ramakrishna Velamuri introduces, in Chapter 36, Business ethics in South Asia: Gandhian trusteeship and its relevance for the twenty-first century, the state of business ethics in India and, more generally, South Asia. Reminding us that this populous region, with its fast growing economies, is the birthplace of two of the most important religions, Velamuri observes the paradox that this part of the world also attains one of the highest corruption scores overall. After reviewing the teaching, research, and practice of business ethics in South Asia, Velamuri introduces, applies, and assesses Mahatma Gandhi’s important concept of trusteeship as crucial to ethical conduct in contemporary Indian economic affairs—this despite the fact that, as the author is quick to explain, Gandhi himself was disillusioned with free trade and opposed to industrialization as well as to the market economy, consumerism, and commodity exchange in general.
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In Chapter 37, Business ethics in Africa, Minka Woermann presents an account of business ethics in sub-Saharan Africa. She points out that business ethics as an academic field has been developing in the region since 2000, though quite unevenly within the different countries comprising sub-Saharan Africa. Though business ethics in this region developed first along Western lines, its trajectory arcs across African contexts and traditions. The history of the sub-Saharan nations, their cultural norms, and levels of economic growth have also affected the development of business ethics. Informed by a culturally-inflected type of communitarianism, firms understand their responsibilities and discharge them by way of an inclusive stakeholder model prevalent throughout the region. Woermann discusses three competing theses regarding the relationship between capitalism, African economic development and colonialism. After identifying some of the current challenges to economic development, she advances the possibility of a distinctively African business ethics using the concept of ubuntu.
In the following Chapter (38), Business ethics in Latin America, Álvaro E. Pezoa illuminates the state of business ethics in Latin America, signaling from the start that the principal moral issue, corruption, arises from the interconnection between the private and the public sphere. Based on factual information culled from recent press publications, he paints a stark picture of corruption’s prevalence among private companies, as well as the appearance of widespread tax fraud, environmental damage, and other problems. Pointing out significant differences among the various countries of the region, Pezoa then turns to discuss empirical findings on public corruption. Documenting the state of business ethics research and teaching, he identifies the interesting peculiarity that in Latin America corporate social responsibility has been studied as a subject distinct from business ethics. In the closing section Pezoa presents a number of recent positive developments and initiatives regarding the practice of Latin American business ethics.
Any assessment of the current status of business ethics in the former Soviet Bloc must take into account a communist past inimical to private enterprise and commercial activity. In Chapter 39, Business ethics in transition: communism to commerce in Central Europe and Russia, Rodica Milena Zaharia opens her chapter on Central Europe and Russia by reminding her readers of that fact. Taking account of the variance among countries, Zaharia holds that, on the one hand, some elements of their anti-capitalist past are interwoven with the (varied) processes of economic transformation these nations have experienced; on the other hand, factors arising from contemporary economic globalization have proven powerful in shaping business ethics in this region. After chronicling the era of centrally planned economies, in which the very notion of “business ethics” was considered to be a contradictory remnant of bourgeois morality, she delineates how the poorly managed transition to a market economy generated negative effects and sowed the seeds of distrust regarding the ethical standing of capitalist business. Nonetheless, the transition also yielded the birth of business ethics, as a discipline and practice imported from the West. Noting the destruction of civil society during the communist era, Zaharia points out, as well, how differences in economic development among countries may give rise to differences in the ethics of business and differential paths of economic transformation.
Byron Kaldis