BUSINESS ETHICS

The Cultural Dimension of Business Ethics

1. Cultural dimensions of Business Ethics

We speak of cultural dimensions to designate structures of organizing and thereby characterizing a particular group of people. The culture tends to take on a supra-identity constituting the framework for each individual in the group. Cultures can be very broad as seen in examples of national identity : the French, the Americans. Or they can be more specific to the common interests it binds the different participants/stakeholders as seen in corporate culture, urban culture, ethnic minority culture. In either case, the culture that results is usually a general, predominant composite of all the constituent parts giving rise to an intangible entity that incorporates its different elements (an inter subjective identity). It is the framework by which a personality develops even if this personality is intangible it represents one, the representation is found in its image and acts like the glue holding the picture together.

Culture is opposed to nature in that it is constructed by man (man-made) not by the physical universe (though the physical universe has an impact on the way in which man constructs culture). One could come up with a 'natural' culture, which may appear as a contradiction in terms. But, if we understand this expression 'natural' culture to be an emphasis on the 'natural' elements in inquiring into 'human nature' and the 'universe', then it just qualifies the culture to be of that type. We can debate on and on about what constitutes the 'natural' (though an essential question regarding environment, we cannot elaborate this now). Questions of the sort : is man basically good or evil?, is it natural to formula feed your baby?, is man in the state of nature prior to social existence?, which parts does society have to maintain for man in his social being? (shelter, survival, , etc); what does man have to give to society in order to sustain it? 

We must consider the economic model used and its influence on the cultural dimension as applied to business ethics the global economy is based on the assumption of capitalism : a free market economy. 1 If we take the economic model as socialist or communist, our evaluations of ethical dilemmas would differ as some norms would be modified in their importance. For example, the ownership of production and the distribution of wealth would be structured according to specific economic systems following their respective norms. For the purposes of this inquiry, we'll use the economic model of capitalism in a 'free market economy'. 

Traditionally, this model is exemplified by Carr & Friedman, both espousing that the main objective of business is to make profits within legality. The role of the corporation and its management is to ensure profits and be accountable to the shareholders. The notion of corporate social and/or moral responsibility has made inroads into this position. The image and moral position of corporations have become so important these days, that their strategies are designed around this preoccupation. Need we be reminded of Total's recent oil spill off of the French coast, or Nike's difficulties with child labor, not to mention the most recent Enron tragedy; just open the newspaper or watch the news to see that corporate roles are beyond making profit. The question of how this profit is to be earned has become as important as the profit itself. Taking the social and moral aspects into account is essential to developing strategy, which in turn affects the corporation's profit capacity.  

Ethics on the other hand, coming from the Greek roots 'éthiké' meaning the ways and habits of a group of people, would translate into the actual customs, and practices characterizing specific cultures. However, over time this meaning has taken on not only a descriptive quality, but a prescriptive one as well while describing it prescribes (behavior). Philosophically speaking, ethics is viewed from morality2 (having its roots in Latin 'mores' customs and habits of a group), which has also developed the character of oscillating from descriptive to prescriptive behavior. That is, what we dos becomes what we should do, in describing behavior there's an inference to prescribing it. This is the way it's done almost sounds like you should do it this way. One may ask how ? Explicitly, any documented policy drawn from actual experience usually takes on a prescriptive nature once it is transmitted as such. Putting behavioral practices into written rules for others to abide by, no longer describes that behaviour but rather prescribes it. Implicitly, the disapproval shown by others creates a pressure to conform to the norm. We'll come back to this idea later on.

Briefly, ethics concerns itself with establishing norms, evaluating when a moral act is right or wrong as well as helping one to make moral decisions when confronted with a moral dilemma.  

Culture and ethics are interrelated and intertwined in such a way that it makes it difficult to know which factor is guiding / motivating the behaviour arising from a given situation. Is it the cultural vision of his/her ethics or is it the ethical vision of his/her culture that guides someone to do or not do certain things. Trompenaar's survey3 questioning people's reaction to a given situation shows that cultures with more emphasis on human relationships and loyalty (particularists) scored lower than those that emphasized obeying rules (universalists). 

http://www.philodialogue.com/10.html

 

My Comments :

According to me about this article, cultural dimension is the organizing structure to mark a particular group. Culture is something specific to tie the stakeholders such as corporate culture. Culture will lead to the intangible entity that lists the different elements that develop the personality.

In this article compares the economic model used and its impact on the cultural dimensions. Suppose the assumptions of free market capitalism in, the economic dilemma ethics will emerge and there will be some norms that were modified on the basis of their interests with the purpose of making profits, their strategies are designed for their own welfare regardless of the suffering of competitors. This is the cultural dimensions of capitalism which I think is unethical because the dimensions of capitalist culture will benefit the strong and get rid of the weak.