With all the media focus on the wrong doings at some companies, looking at the nature of business ethics is proper. Unfortunately, there isn't a universal set of business ethics around the world. An acceptable practice in one place can be a major violation in another. Often, when two cultures meet, business ethics clash. Only with some shared ideas do people have a chance of having shared business ethics.
A good example of this clash occurred in the 1800's between white settlers and native Americans. The white settlers had the expectation of either finding the land empty or being able to deal with an organized stratified society—such as they had in Europe. When dealing with an organized society, simply find the leader and make any deals with him/her. Land was marked, organized and controlled.
On the contrary, native American society was based on the individual and small tribal groups. Individuals could, and did, go off on their own to have their own loyalties and battles. Raiding parties were a part of normal life and different leaders would arise based on their skill in pulling people together to stage a raid and making it succeed. Land control only occurred in the concept of what was on the land (housing, stored supplies, game, etc.).
Between the two, the concept of shared business ethics was almost meaningless. Sure, there were those who could do business with both sides, but they were not the major players in the market.
We see the same thing happening today in the Amazon.
One key to "taming" the Amazon in today's world is how major players first send in missionaries. These missionaries not only teach religion, they also teach how to survive in the western world. Whether intentionally or not, they teach the concepts upon which business ethics can be built. The same thing happened with the North American tribes.
We can debate the goals of the missionaries, but we can not debate the fact that the "missionized" villages fit better into the ways of western business. What the missionaries provided was a common set of values so that the villages would operate like the rest of society.
Could we, in the heart of western business, need the same thing? Facing a crisis from the lack of business ethics, could the solution be the same—to have groups, from outside of business, "missionize" it?
Why do we need any such action? Yes, many of the people involved with the current scandals are religious. The problem is that many people do not follow their stated beliefs. Religious writings show that with each generation, people need to be "missionized" all over again.
There are different groups out there that want to "missionize" business. That begs the question: will these differing outside groups provide the common structure on which to build global set of business ethics? Will the clashing outside groups result in clashing business ethics?
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