Major adherents of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths, who claim common religious roots, have worked quietly for years on an interfaith declaration which would identify shared ethical values to be applied in the conduct of international business. After a final meeting in Amman, Jordan, in 1993 the Declaration was officially promulgated at St James's Palace in London in 1994, and the author of this introduction was acknowledged as a major figure in its composition. Besides being Director of the British‐North (...) American Research Association, Simon Webley has researched and written extensively on codes of conduct in business. Copies of the Interfaith Declaration, which is reproduced here with permission, are obtainable from The Interfaith Foundation, P.O. Box 4385, London SW1W 9XS. (shrink)

The author of this major study compares the significantly different approaches to business ethics on both sides of the Atlantic and considers what they have to learn from each other. He has considerable experience of business ethics in both Europe and North America, having taught and researched the subject at the University of St Gallen in his native Switzerland before his appointment as Professor of International Business Ethics in the College of Business Administration, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA. (...) Professor Enderle was also the founding Honorary Treasurer of the European Business Ethics Network and is an Associate Editor of this Review. (shrink)

An integrity-based approach to ethics management combines a concern for the law with an emphasis on managerial responsibility for ethical behavior. Though integrity strategies may vary in design and scope, all strive to define companies’ guiding values, aspirations, and patterns of thought and conduct. When integrated into the day-to-day operations of an organization, such strategies can help prevent damaging ethical lapses while tapping into powerful human impulses for moral thought and action. Then an ethical framework becomes no longer a burdensome (...) constraint within which companies must operate, but the governing ethos of an organization. (shrink)

This paper compares the results of large-scale U.S. and U.K. surveys designed to identify managers' major ethical concerns and to investigate how firms are formulating and communicating ethics policies responsive to these concerns.Our findings indicate some important differences between U.S. and U.K. firms in perceptions of what are important ethical issues, in the means used to communicate ethics policies, and in the issues addressed in ethics policies and employee training. U.K. companies tend to be more likely to communicate ethics policies (...) through senior executives, whereas U.S. companies tend to rely more on their Human Resources and Legal Departments. U.S. firms consider most ethical issues to be more important than do their U.K. counterparts, and are especially concerned with employee behavior which may harm the firm. In contrast, the issues which U.K. managers consider more important tend to be concerned with external corporate stakeholders rather than employees. (shrink)

Ethical guidelines for multinational corporations are included in several international accords adopted during the past four decades. These guidelines attempt to influence the practices of multinational enterprises in such areas as employment relations, consumer protection, environmental pollution, political participation, and basic human rights. Their moral authority rests upon the competing principles of national sovereignty, social equity, market integrity, and human rights. Both deontological principles and experience-based value systems undergird and justify the primacy of human rights as the fundamental moral authority (...) of these transnational and transcultural compacts. Although difficulties and obstacles abound in gaining operational acceptance of such codes of conduct, it is possible to argue that their guidelines betoken the emergence of a transcultural corporate ethic. (shrink)

Business Ethics: Japan and the Global Economy presents a multicultural perspective of global business ethics with special emphasis on Japanese viewpoints. In contrast to the typical business ethics book written primarily from the viewpoint of Western culture and economy, the majority of the work is by Asian scholars, providing an historical overview of the religious, scientific and cultural phenomena which converged to create modern Japanese business ethics. Perspectives from socioeconomics, sociology, social contract and applied business ethics contribute to the analysis (...) of moral issues. A new Japanese approach to moral science, Moralogy, is introduced and its implications for phenomena such as the Keiretsu system are explored. Concurrently, prominent Western ethicists explore the role of moral language and the implications of Kantian ethics and contractarian approaches for developing universal moral standards. Because Japan is an economic superpower, it is critical to understand the hidden economic culture, work ethic, and way of thinking in business. We must realize these are the results of an integration of historical factors, such as Shintoism, Buddhism, Confuctianism and modern Western science and technology. Business Ethics: Japan and the Global Economy provides philosophical and anthropological analyses of the Japanese economic mind, departing from previous stereotyped approaches. Theoretical discussions based upon social contract theory are presented in order to build ethical norms with cross-cultural activity for multinational economic activities. From such a universal stance, practical proposals are presented to transnationalize the Keiretsu system and other Japanese economic institutions. (shrink)

What are the ethical concerns among the growing populations of business people in Central & Eastern Europe, and how might they be dealt with practically in the course of business life? David Murray has been a management consultant since 1979 working primarily with the Hay Group in the area of strategic organisational change. Since founding Maine Consulting Services in 1991 he spends most of his time in the field of business and professional ethics, also holding a Visiting Fellowship at the (...) University of Central Lancashire. He is chairman of the Professional & Technical Board at the (British) Institute of Quality Assurance and a coordinating editor of the quarterly Organisations & People. Marek Kucia is a social researcher operating his own research agency (which organised the Polish part of this exercise) and an academic teaching sociology, and conducting and co‐ordinating Central European Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. He studied political science, sociology and philosophy at Krakow and studied for his PhD at Oxford. He has also worked for Gallup, London, in opinion and market research. This survey report is based on presentations made in April 1994 to the EBEN Research Centres Conference in Prague, and in June 1994 to the conference on “Ethics in Transition” organised in Gödöllö, Hungary, by the Democracy after Communism Foundation, Budapest. The authors wish to acknowledge the major contribution to this work of Mr Juraj Kusnierik of the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, who co‐ordinated the survey exercise. The project was sponsored by The Ethics Development Initiative, CARE, London; the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, Slovakia; SIS Ltd., Bratislava, Slovakia; and Maine Consulting Services, 16 Acrefield, Blackburn, Lancashire, England BB2 7BJ, to which all correspondence connected with this report should be addressed. (shrink)