Ethical business cultures across thirteen countries: Anglo, Asian, European, and Latin American perspectives

Dimensions of ethical business cultures: comparing data from 13 Countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. By Ardichvilia A. et.al

In an attempt to cover as extensive as possible in a global dimension the issue of ethical business culture, the article divides the areas of study into the Anglo cluster (U.S., Canada, Australia and UK), China, Japan, continental Western and Central Europe, Latin America, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and India as the main categories within which the discussion is contextualized.

The Anglo cluster depicts business ethics as an issue that follows a given organizational structure, the policies therein and the processes of transactions as well as the trainings and development programs that one goes through. These ethics, in as much as they are embedded in the above measures and tenets, they are largely based on the behavior of the leadership of the organization hence the personal behavior of the leadership of any organization is significantly tied to and influences the ethical business behavior and perception of the same by the general public. Here, the corporate missions and values are highly held and each day the employees and leadership strive to align the organizational values with the organizational culture.

In china though, ethics in business is highly influenced by the Confucianism beliefs. They use this philosophy to develop corporate cultures that have unique Chinese characteristics. Here, there is less emphasis on the formal contracts or code of behavior to develop the business ethics, but more of the cultural values such as benevolence, harmony, loyalty, learning, humility and righteousness, all these keeping in alignment with Confucian principles.

Japanese on the other hand, though are highly influenced by the Confucian principles, have a slightly different take on the same and rely more on harmony than benevolence as their Chinese counterparts do. The Japanese are more situational in developing their corporate ethics and decisions with care to maintain harmony within the working environment. They would shy from controversy and rocking the organization, unlike the implementation of the organizational ethics in the Anglo cluster who would not shy away from controversy and conflict if the contract stated a given ethical standpoint.

The business ethics in the continental Western and Central Europe is also slightly different from the Anglo cluster with moderate individualism and high uncertainty avoidance being the general trend. Here, the business ethics are such that there is less emphasis on the corporate codes of conduct and ethics, but there is more focus on emphasizing the general legal framework within which the corporates operate. Here, for instance in Germany, there is little zeal to formally introduce ethics programs as compared to the U.S. where the issue of ethics is significantly legalistic.

In Latin America there are high levels of social decisions and ethical considerations being concentrated around individuals, particularly the rich and those in leadership positions. Power concertation and loyalty to one's group plays a big role in shaping the managerial culture in this region. In the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there is a general belief that human behavior is highly directed by innate universal moral values, hence Islam here is the main source of the written values and unwritten ethics in most organizations. Each business decision must therefore pass through this moral filter. In India however, the perspective on ethcis is quite different from all the other regions, here, the push to make profits come first before the considerations of ethics behind the business. They rely more on intuition in their decision making as compared to U.S. business leaders who are more analytical.

In order to improve the cultural intelligence therefore, any leader first needs to ensure they are well versed with the region they are bound to work in and they have a significant personal cross cultural experience with the people and the business leaders since there is no single business ethics that can apply across the globe and none is superior to the others.