Ethics in International Management

Ethics in International Management

Introduction

Business ethics is based on honesty, openness, and loyalty to one's word; the ability to function effectively in the market in accordance with applicable laws, established rules and traditions. Business ethics has long served as an object of study and speculation around the world. Aristotle equated profit to usury. Business is treated as one of the essential spheres of human activity (Nesteruk, 1995, p. 361-369). Business ethics begins to take shape only after the emergence of firms differentiated from the traditional small business, for their formal and hierarchical organization Separation of the address and property. Ethics involves various notions of duty, including those that are separated from their consequences. In business, however, it is neither possible nor desirable to separate duties from their consequences. Indeed, the business of ethics is to balance duties and consequences, in order to get both the ethics and the business of the enterprise right. Thus both consequentialist and deontological ethics are relevant and important to business (Nesteruk, 1995, p. 361-369).

It appears that today's business organizations are faced with a serious dilemma. On the one hand, it becomes increasingly clear that the legally protected unlimited pursuit of profit cannot be left to dominate without challenge from more meaningful and complex criteria (e.g. professional values, human values, social values, public values). On the other hand, the very complexity and relative incommensurability of these criteria makes it difficult for any unitary perspective to take a more prescriptive position. This position is to refer to both what non-profit values should guide for-profit organizations, and what philosophy these organizations should adopt about the relationship between pursuit of profit and the other values they should uphold (White, 1993, pp. 50-87). This essay will discuss important ethical considerations in business and international management. The essay will demonstrate an understanding of the extent to which earning profits might be regarded as an ethical action, and the moral constraints of society being applicable to business activities. The essay will also analyze the inclusion of ethics in doing business off-shore, in another land.

Discussion

Although for-profit activities can have positive effects on society, there is increasing concern among both the public and the academic community regarding its negative effects, in particular on human development and well-being. Despite the growing concerns, there is little guidance on effective organizational responses to this potential risk. The notion of human value was first defined and applied in a socio-economic context by Karl Marx (Stark, 1993, pp. 38-48). Constructing human value in contrast to the concept of economic value, the former was defined as summing up what the capitalist economic system takes away from the worker (in terms of free time and opportunities for self-realization) and does not (effectively cannot) give back. Thus, it was claimed that the production system consumes the worker's free time and all the non-material, non-quantifiable advantages that go with it, in return for economic value or material gain (in the form of wages), which is of only limited, one-dimensional use ...