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International Business Ethics

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What are International Business Ethics?
International Business Ethics

The importance of international business ethics has been rising steadily along with the growth of international business. Technologies like the Internet have made international business all the more viable, and many companies can only find the desirable growth and profit they seek by expanding into new markets. This means that just as business ethics domestically have grown in importance along with the power and significance of major businesses, so must international business ethics take center stage as a major concern of the modern era.

The primary problem of international business ethics lies in the fact that most cultures and nations hold entirely different standards of both law and ethics. In America, business ethics can be employed because, in general, the disagreement between what actions are ethical and what actions are unethical in a single culture will be lesser than the disagreement between two entirely different cultures with different values and cultural practices. As a result, one business might believe it is acting perfectly in accordance with international business ethics, while another would view that first business as acting in a completely unethical fashion.

Many businesses adopt the policies of cultural relativism, in which they attempt to take on the business ethics exhibited by the nation in which the business is working a particular deal, as opposed to attempting to carry any of their own business ethics across cultural boundaries. However, this practice is not without its own flaws. For more information on the basic issues and problems facing any attempts to form coherent international business ethics codes, click the link.

One of the biggest problems facing any international business code of ethics is that standards for employment practices are not constant

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