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The growth of international business calls for the development of universal ethical standards. Corporate and national cultures embody differing codes of conduct. Serious ethical lapses have damaged organizations and societies. Various international groups of business leaders are developing voluntary ethical standards. Citizen activism may be needed to ensure implementation and compliance with such standards.
The continued quest for economic growth as the organizing principle of public policy is accelerating the breakdown of the ecosystem's regenerative capacities and the social fabric that sustains human community; at the same time, it is intensifying the competition for resources between rich and poor-a competition that the poor invariably lose. (David C. Korten, 1995, p. 11)
In the current business press, two things stand out. The first and most prominent is the emphasis on global competitiveness. The second is the frequent revelations of wrongdoing by business leaders in virtually all countries. It seems likely that the two are related, that the ethical and cultural fabrics of our business communities and whole societies are being weakened, virtually torn apart by the struggles inherent in unprecedented levels of economic competition. Clearly it is time for management scholars and academics everywhere to begin to address the ethical issues associated with the all-out economic war being waged throughout the world. We must try to help improve the ethical climate by studying what is happening, especially by finding and documenting practices that are both ethical and competitive so that they can be emulated, and by influencing our students and business leaders through our teaching to consider the full costs of unethical practices.
This article addresses four issues. First, we will address the nature of current business thinking reflected in popular business goals because we think academics in business schools play an important role in legitimating or questioning those goals and thus the practices associated with them. Second and more briefly, we will discuss how the issues posed by ethics are intertwined with those of managing corporate cultures. Third, we will identify various groups and organizations that have the explicit purpose of improving the ethics of international business and describe their activities. We will end with some speculation about the paths likely to be most effective in improving the ethics of business practice around...