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International business ethics involves applying moral principles and integrity in conducting business globally. While ethical principles are generally universal, cultural and religious considerations can cause variations. It is important for businessmen and women to apply an acceptable moral code when conducting business abroad to avoid legal implications and ethical violations.
International business ethics is a term that refers to the application of ethics in the conduct of business in the international arena. The concept of ethics in general is one that rests largely on a foundation of moral principles and integrity as opposed to business law or employment law. This is mainly because ethical considerations in international business are mostly universal as most ethical principles are applicable in different countries, unlike commercial law which is generally more individual. Even though international business ethics have many similarities, there are still some points of variation due to the application of principles of different belief systems and cultural and religious considerations.
One of the general rules of international business ethics is that businessmen and women try as much as possible to apply an acceptable moral code when conducting business abroad. A good illustration of applying basic morality to practice international business ethics can be seen in the area of child labour, as the practice may be illegal in some countries and permitted in others. For this reason, management of organizations from countries that do not allow this practice may intentionally go to another country where it is allowed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of cheap child labour. In this situation, company management knows that not only is child labor ethically reprehensible, but also that such a practice would lead to possible prison terms and closure of the company in its home country. Here, it is clear that the application of international business ethics is lacking, even if the act is not strictly illegal.
Scenarios for applying international business ethics abound and are frequently encountered by those involved in international business. For example, assuming a customer in one country orders some goods from a manufacturer located in another country, ethical considerations require that manufacturer to abide by the terms of the agreement between him and her and the consumer. Therefore, if the consumer orders a reported number of expensive TVs and the manufacturer tries to trick the customer into using inferior components to make the TVs, clearly the manufacturer has violated the norms of international business ethics. In this case, the violation of ethics has legal implications as the customer can sue the manufacturer over poor television reception.
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