David Robinson
David Robinson
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
Bond University
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Are traditional Western ethical theories still relevant in a cross-cultural and entrepreneurial business world?
David Robinson, Queensland University of Technology and Jieru Zhou, ANTAI School of Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
DATE: April 2006
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ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT:
Pre-publication print. This is the author's pre-publication print of a conference presentation, World Business Ethics Forum 2006 held in Hong Kong and Macau, 1-3 November 2006.
Selected papers from this conference will be published in a special issue of Journal of Business Ethics available at SpringerLink
ABSTRACT:
Ethics is an area of business largely left to the imagination. Typically, managers are guided by the company code or culture, or at least have a person higher up the hierarchy that they can refer to when faced with a decision containing ethical dimensions. Entrepreneurial managers, being opportunistic and often working alone, may overlook or even ignore the ethical elements of business decisions.
Under circumstances of intense competition and the need for expediency, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur may be faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must usually rely on their own judgment to determine ‘what is right’.
Since moral choices have a significant impact on business decisions, and given the fact that entrepreneurs usually make those choices without requesting advice from people well-versed in ethics, it is important to know whether or not they are likely to have ethical bias or particular orientation.
Traditional Western ethical theories recognise three bases for ethical choice, namely virtues, rules and/or consequences. This paper assesses the ethical orientations of managers with entrepreneurial intentions by means of a questionnaire administered to Master of Business Administration candidates in China and Australia, who either have or do not have the intention to become entrepreneurs.