A Comparative Study Of Business Ethical Behavior In Different Cultural Contexts--From Chinese And Western Perspectives

With the transformation of China's economy and ideology, the study of business ethics has just been arisen in recent years. It involves the research in areas such as culture, ethics and business behaviors. The analysis of dimensional cultural values assists in tracing out core values, which play a very important role in building business ethics. Business behavior is just a practice of business ethics. According to the Literature Review in Chapter Two, the Integrative Social Contracts Theory serves as an effective model to probe into universal ethical norms (hypernorms) and specific ones in businesses. Generally speaking, hypernorms include core human rights and obligations that are universal to all human beings. Specifically speaking, Western ethics is rule-based and highly values individual equity and human rights in order to avoid conflicts among social members; Chinese ethics, family- and relation- based, aims at maintaining a steady social order.Chapter Three studies business ethics in different cultural contexts. Particular attention is paid to Chinese business ethics. The reason is that many people think Chinese traditional culture is not conducive to the building of a market economy and Chinese enterprises are really confronted with many ethical problems in the process of further development and going international. This study aims to arouse their awareness of ethical concerns when conducting business. Comparatively speaking, Chinese ethical values have a dual influence on business behaviors: on the one hand, Chinese enterprises are competitive with harmonious interpersonal relationships, strong cohesion, humanistic and emotional management, and centralized decision-making authority; on the other hand, they also have defects as nepotism, the neglect of human rights and equity, prevailing paternalism and weak institutional control over business behaviors. The empirical findings and case study show that Chinese enterprises should combine the positive elements in Chinese and Western business ethics to sharpen the competitive edge in international market. Only by conciliating cultural conflicts in international business, can more Chinese multinational corporations succeed globally and more foreign partners prosper in China.At present, the study of business ethics is still underdeveloped in China, and the author is open-armed to the suggestions and comments from experts of all circles to deepen this study.