Business Ethics

3 Pages 786 Words

In Donaldson’s Values in Tension: Ethics Away From Home, he describes a policy

that was standard at home, but unsuccessful elsewhere. In one example, the manager of a

U.S. company in China caught one of the employees stealing. By following the company’s

practice and turning the employee over to the authorities, which was the right thing

to do according to our values. The employee was executed because he was

judged based on China’s political, legal, and ethical codes, while to us (Americans)

the punishment did not fit the crime.

While many cultures believe in some variation of “The Golden Rule”, there really is

no detailed international standard of business conduct. U.S. firms should, at the very least

establish company policies that take into consideration the principles of different cultures.

There is clearly a balancing act to develop policies that define the ethics of the

corporation, while understanding that codes of conduct vary greatly around the world. Firms

like Levi Strauss and Motorola, not only define their policies, they understand that their

managers must be able to adapt to a great deal of moral uncertainty in international

assignments.

Many business practices are neither black nor white but exist in a gray zone, a moral

free space through which businesses and their managers must find away to deal with. Levi

Strauss and Motorola seemed to have helped managers by treating company values as absolute

and insisting that their suppliers and customers do the same. How this was addressed by

these companies, was the development of detailed codes of conduct that provides clear

direction on ethical behavior, but leaves room for managers of these companies to use moral

imagination that allows them to resolve ethical problems appropriately.

Donaldson argues that companies must be guided by three principles in the shaping of

ethical...