International Business: The Importance of Ethics in Business

International Business

The business world has always relied heavily on contractual agreements while conducting business. These contracts while written in ink, are set in stone. Once your business partner signs his/her name on the dotted line the pact has been sealed and nothing else needs to be said. But what happens when you take away the physical contractual element and everything is agreed upon through one's word?

The world of business ethics is an old discipline in most parts of the world, and in most cases, is applied to the everyday business world. But in the case of China, the country of exaggerated numbers and inflated profit margins, business ethics has yet to be fully assimilated into the Chinese business culture.

Business ethics is a multi-faceted approach to honesty, integrity, and straight-forwardness in the corporate world. This paper however, is concerned with two main business ethics' topics brought up by Dr. Rothlin in his book, Becoming a Top Notch Player: 18 Rules of International Business Ethics. We will be discussing rules 14 &15 in the following. Rule 14 deals with securing your public reputation by having a commitment to quality and excellence. Rule 15 deals mainly with corruption and it's negative impacts on day-to-day business dealings. Although rules 14 &15 are both in the realm of business ethics, they are very different by nature and therefore we decided to give them each their own separate section. The first section we will go over is rule 14, following that is rule 15.

Rule 14 states, "Your public relations strategy will only secure your reputation if it witnesses your drive for quality and excellence". At first glance, this seems like a rather straightforward, obvious principle ...

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...middle of the two extremes that would be optimal.

The GMC case study is a convincing argument that reliable services build prestige. In cutting the offending companies from their list of contacts, GMC earned a reputation of honesty and loyalty. Such a reputation rewards a business with future financial profits and commercial morality. With Enron in the rear-view mirror, companies need to learn that merely looking like an ethical company is not enough. There must be physical proof of commercial morality. This can only be gained slowly, through many business decisions and years of dealings. As China continues it's rise towards modernization and commercialization, it's companies rely on pure business ethics to build a solid foundation for the future. If these ethical procedures are not practiced, the rapidly growing giant that is China could stall in the mud.