Business Ethics

The world is getting smaller and it is increasingly easy to contact and work with people across the world. Whereas in the past a UK business might set its sights on reaching a few cities in the UK, businesses now have greater international opportunities. This brings a whole host of new ethical issues but rather than apply our moral theories to these issues, we will leave this to the reader. The aim in this section is to start you thinking about some of the issues.

Nike, Gap, M&S, H&M, Walmart, Nestlé, and many more companies have been exposed as using child labour. Although this may not be illegal in the country where the children were used, people think it is very wrong. But is it? Consider this quotation from a Cameroonian father who is also a farmer: "[child labour] is considered as part of the household chores children do to help their parents. I do not consider this child abuse because we are making money that is used to pay their school fees".

We can understand then that a local rural economy may well be wholly dependent on the use of child labour and therefore a blanket ban on child labour would have a directly negative effect on the livelihoods of a large number of people. But how much then are "western ideals" simply idiosyncratic? Should there be a complete ban or is it the case that:

Or consider another issue. As we said, it was not until quite recently that there has been a move to make businesses more environmentally friendly. During the industrial revolution in the UK there was no such requirement. Now consider businesses in "developing" countries. They are often trying to start from scratch with very poor infrastructure and a poor understanding of the environmental impact of their work. In fact, the West imposing their environmental standards on businesses would effectively stop such businesses developing and may lead to their collapse. If a farmer in Kenya has not only got to produce crops, but has to do so in a more expensive "environmentally friendly" way then that famer might struggle to survive. What right then do businesses in the West have to impose these environmental standards on businesses in other less affluent countries?

There are many other examples of the ethical issues that come with the increase in globalization. In general, these arise when there is a clash of cultures. For example, some cultures operate by using bribes; what then should businesses do within that culture? What about when a Western business is located in a culture which treats women as second class citizens; how should the business treat their female employees and successfully operate? The general question then is how far can we impose  -  if at all  -  Western business ethics in non-Western contexts?