Explaining the Fundamental Relationship between Corporate/Business Ethics and National Culture
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Date
2012
Authors
George, O
Oghojafor, B
Owoyemi, O
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Abstract
Corporate ethics is adapted from the words: ‘sound moral values’. It attempts at putting in place some sense
of ‘sound moral values’ within a company’s employee population as regards how they could conduct
business responsibly. The recent corporate scandals globally (which have been taken to unprecedented levels)
have made managers and researchers to turn their attentions to questions of ethics management. This paper
therefore examines how national culture influences ‘sound moral values’ in business enterprises. As the main
objective of business enterprises is to maximise profit, this should be done within some acceptable ‘sound
moral values’ or what can be referred to as business/corporate ethics. The study being qualitative relies on the
interview research technique while employing primary and secondary sources of data collection. The study
concludes that national culture determines corporate/business culture while corporate/business culture is
fashioned after national culture. The implication of this is that multinational companies cannot expect that the
same business ethics operating in their home countries can be ‘exported’ to the host countries. This is mainly
because of differences in the culture of the host countries and the home countries. Secondly, a template of
business ethics is therefore problematic if not impossible.
Description
Staff publication
Keywords
Corporate ethics , National culture
Citation
George, O; Oghojafor, B; Owoyemi, O (2012), Explaining the Fundamental Relationship between Corporate/Business Ethics and National Culture. American Journal of Business and Management, vol.1(3)