Interrelation between Work Ethics and Business Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Strictly speaking, business ethics is the applied ethics discipline that addresses the moral features of commercial activity. In practice, however, various studies may fall under this category, as long as they touch upon such issues as moral values and beliefs, (in)justice, legal compliance and the like, as related to management-employee relationship, or, generally, a company's relations with its stakeholders. Previous research has, for instance, dealt with the behaviour of individuals when faced with ethical choices, assessment of choices made by business executives (Jones 1991; Trevino 1986), with the interest focused on the effects of situational or contextual variables on ethical behaviour (e.g. Ford and Richardson 1994; Jones and Kavanagh 1996; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005; Robertson and Ross 1995; Trevino 1986). Quinn (1997) suggested a distinction between personal ethics and business ethics, He found some evidence that people's personal ethical attitudes are not brought to bear on business issues. Carlson, Kacmar, and Wadsworth (2002) found that the context of a given situation had an effect on perceptions of ethical or non-ethical behaviour.The paper will discuss corporate business practices perceived through the lens of the employee’s work ethics; exposing the dichotomies and dilemmas faced by employees despite numerous business ethics policies and guidelines. To start with, work ethics will be presented from the cross-cultural perspective, spanning from work ethics and Islam and focusing on Saudi Arabia, to Japan and the impact of the Japanese culture on the Japanese work ethics. Against the background of cross-cultural differences in ethical values related to work, 'global' but 'Americanised' corporate business ethics, in particular that of American IT companies will be examined. The author will argue that translating policies and other business-ethics-related documents into several languages is an insufficient strategy in a multinational working environment, leading to increased clashes between the employee’s ethical values embedded in a given culture, on the one hand, and the imposed business ethics values of the parent company on the other. This in turn calls for more localised measures, which will be put forward tentatively.In particular, the author will look into corporate framing and execution of power by companies that goes against their codes of business ethics. Corporate code of ethics and business conduct are discussed since employees are supposed to familiarise themselves with it and apply its standards to their daily working life. All employee of a given company, regardless of employment level, position, or geographic location, are expected to meet its business values and to practise ethical behaviour in all business dealings. New employees are also commonly required to complete an internal ethics course, and then retake it in predefined intervals. Other documents will also be mentioned, whereby employee dilemmas in dealings with external stakeholders, such as partners and suppliers ('partner and supplier codes'; 'directives for relationship with partners') will be taken into consideration.