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In this article, we provide a summary of several major traditional and contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives on ethical conduct for businesses, along with five different sets of internationally accepted ethical guidelines for corporations operating anywhere in the world. We include examples of corporate codes of conduct from particular multinational corporations. Our orienting framework of ethics theory is expanded to include a discussion of both Western and non-Western frameworks, including those of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Native American traditions, allowing faculty and students to explore ethical problems that honor a wide array of national, cultural, and ethnic contexts and differences.
Keywords: ethics; global; teaching; learning; ethical; reasoning
In our graduate and undergraduate organizational behavior and management classes, we have students from around in the world, yet throughout our teaching experience, we have not yet found a comprehensive theoretical approach to teaching and learning business ethics within a global context. Although many good models exist for teaching ethics from a domestic perspective (e.g., Liedtka, 1992; Mallinger, 1997; Piper, Gentile, & Parks, 1993), increasingly the business ethics challenges found both in the United States and abroad involve understanding ethical dilemmas from the perspective of non-U.S. stakeholders. In examining textbooks and journal articles, we find an increasing number of international business issues and cases but few tools to explore and understand the ethical challenges embedded in these issues. Following our interest in business ethics, global issues, and multiculturalism, we developed a model to use in teaching and learning business ethics that addresses the global context.
We offer here a summary of several major traditional and contemporary philosophical and psychological approaches to ethical conduct to be used in business, along with five recognized sets of ethical guidelines from the 20th century that are currently used in a global context. The different theoretical approaches, along with the guidelines, offer faculty and students an expanded means of exploring and solving ethical problems that honor a wide array of national, cultural, and ethnic contexts and differences. Additionally, we provide examples of corporate codes of conduct from particular corporations.
The Philosophical Traditions of Ethical Reasoning
Whether teaching organizational behavior, business and society, business ethics, human resources management, or general management, educating management students involves providing frameworks to approach ethical issues and dilemmas. Traditionally,...