A global set of ethics is not impossible in business:

Each culture and region of the world can have it own ethics

as well as values and culture differences.

In etymology, business means to the state of being busy either as an individual

or society as a whole, doing commercially viable work to attain a profit. Without the

name profit in business, one could not call the work as a term of business. Business is

not a game but it is a risk that a company, firm, or an enterprise has to face in order to

survive in the market sector. While the term ethics refers to a system of a morale

principles a sense of right and wrong, and goodness and badness of actions and the

motives and consequences of these actions. The generalized usage to refer ethics is a

rule that we created on our own where the term of morality is taken. Usually values

and judgement play a key role in ethics. Example of ethics are honesty and loyal.

Ethics in business is study of good and evils, right or wrong, just and unjust actions of

businessmen. Business ethics is an obligation for the organizations to know as new

trends and issues arise on daily bases that create a burden to organization and

its stakeholders. Issues such as bribery, accounting fraud and falsifying of

organization documents may threaten the company and firms. Nowadays, the

need for proper ethical behavior within organizations has become crucial to avoid

possible lawsuits.

The public scandals of corporate malfeasance and misleading practices, have

affected the public perception of many organizations such as Layman Brothers.

Business has been the most active field in the world. Perhaps, there is a need of global

ethics due to the fact that the recent expansion of global business and fall of trade

barriers worldwide have further underlined the interest in the topics of ethical

behavior and social responsibility. As multinational companies expand globally and

enter foreign markets, ethical conduct of employees is compulsory since the variation

of cultural diversity may undermine the much shared culture and ethical values in

organization. So, do global ethics is possible in business?

From my perspective, Global Ethics in business could present as a set of

universal standards that helps to make an ethics and compliance program to be an

effective and successful outcomes. It could probably be a benchmarking tool, that was

designed for the use of self-assessment protocol that permits an organization to

evaluate what they are doing in the terms of ethics and integrity. As multinational

companies often have problems to make judgment or assess their progress in making

a formal and transparent commitment to ethics and integrity, these companies could

use global ethics as a tool that could assist them to ensure the progress is effective. As

we know, business state or conditions, besides attitude vary greatly in terms of

cultural diversity across the worldwide. These somehow make people suspicious that

ethics could be made as an indicator in business across the worldwide. Though it may

not sufficient to provide guidelines for proper ethical behavior, it may help the people

to recognize the difference among them which will enhance the cross-cultural

communication. In fact, global ethics will provide a benchmark that is applicable and

practical for the worldwide as it would address the need of universal approach in

organization’s or firm’s ethical and integrity. Although, legal standards for business

differ , the fundamentals of workplace ethics would transcend national boundaries and
legal systems. Besides, Global Ethics would focus on how individuals treat each other

in workplace, and how the organizations treat them.

Relying the fact that people always argue and questions the possibility of

global ethics in business, I would like address to the people that there is an

organization called Institute for Global Ethics which works with Fortune 500

companies, professional business associations, and with local, state, and federal

government department. Apart from that, it was founded in 1990 and the Institute for

Global Ethics (IGE) is an independent, non-sectarian, non-partisan, non-profit

organization which are dedicated to promoting ethical action in a global context.

Institute for global ethics provides the ethical culture and training needs of businesses

in the United States and around the world. As an institution that was dedicated to the

advancement of ethics, its core values are important to identify and imperative to

adhere to in all we do. Through its research, they have identified ethical values that

are suitable globally regardless of human culture, race, age, religious affiliation

gender or nationality. Referring to the Ethics Newsline which reported according to

the ‘Global Corporate Ethics Practices: A Developing Consensus’ on Jul 26th,

1999, there was a statement made by the President and Founder of IGE, Mr.

Rushworth M. Kidder which stated that:

“But a code, like a strategic plan, has a life cycle. Codes need periodic refreshing.

Their core principles should remain immutable. But their examples change with the

decades, as does the relevancy of their language. This report admits the obvious:

Firms that have built codes will sooner or later be rebuilding. Doing so, it takes the

lead as the essential companion to any executive team charged with making ethics

matter.”
The above could describe that global ethics can be fulfil by creating an organization

that is recognised globally so that confusion can be avoided. It also demonstrates that

to build a truly great global business, business leaders need to adopt a global standard

of ethical practices. According to article on Business Week, “Ethics Must Be Global

Not Ethical”, which was reported on February 12th, 2008 by Bill George, his views

are :

“Forty years of experience has strengthened my belief that the only way to build a

great global company is with a single global standard of business practices,

vigorously communicated and rigorously enforced. Applying "situation ethics" in

developing countries is the fastest way to destroy a global organization. To sustain

their success, companies must follow the same standards of business conduct in

Shanghai, Mumbai, Kiev, and Riyadh as in Chicago.”

Bill George views would make a sufficient evidence to strengthen the fact that a

global set of ethics is needed in the world of business nowadays.

What usually play in the mind of people around the world is what do global

ethics comprises? Global ethics comprises of many aspects such as leadership.

Leadership is the most typical aspect that will be included. Leadership covers the

responsibilities of the leader in an organization to shape, guide and support the

organization’s ethics. In certain companies, the leaders do not practice the company’s

ethics, which may hard to shape the employees to follow the company’s code of

ethics. With the help of global ethics, it could be as a benchmark that will examine

whether the leaders are accountable for promoting the organizations ethics. Therefore,

it could make an assessment for the organizations “tone from the top” so that all the

people in the organization including the senior manager would cooperate to promote
the company code of ethics. As a matter of fact, organizational culture is a

compulsory aspect as it would explore the degree to which an organization focuses on

shaping its organizational culture which includes both written and unwritten rules that

dictate how goals are reached, besides to know whether the culture promotes ethical

conduct. In fact, this aspect addresses things like how cultures are define, who shapes

the culture in an organization and the degree to which the employees find the culture

supportive of ethics. Another aspects that will include is the legal rules or policies.

Legal policies involve core laws and guidance that comprise the legal framework for

the organization ethics. This aspects would assess the internal framework that

provides the floor for ethical behavior. There are other aspects that will fall under

global ethics such as whistleblowing customers, ethics training and education,

cooperate social responsibility and ethics communication. From my point of view, the

above aspects could be made as a benchmark in business for people around the world

due the fact it does not reflect the legal environment of any sovereign nation.

However, these benchmarks must be change over time so that is suitable with the

environment of the workplace. In fact, this would help to enable the workplace to

grow and improve. With the above benchmarks, the organization that practices it

would look upon it as prescriptive of effectiveness in their business to grow. Indeed,

from the perspective of certain personals who are quite experience in ethics of

business field it is better for us to evaluate the relevance of benchmarks first, before

blindly follow the standards of it.

As a wrapped up or conclusion, I think it is possible for a global set of ethics

in business as ethical issues and concerns facing business entities are no longer related

to the frameworks of national or regional levels. The best option is to create a code of

ethics that covers all aspects of business that operates by an international organization
like the Institute for Global Ethics (IGE). Besides that a code of treaty must be

drafted, signed and ratified by all the registered world organizations. The role to draft

a code of treaty can placed on the shoulders of the World Trade Organizations(WTO).

Lastly, I would like to point out that a global organizations need to develop and

enforce their own codes of ethics specifically directed at the issues related to a

multicultural, multinational business environment. If all of this is fulfill, I may assure

that Global Ethics in Business is possible and could become a reality for the world

today.