Attitudes of Future Managers Towards Business Ethics: A Comparison of Finnish and American Business Students

Leni Grnbaum

ABSTRACT. The cross-cultural survey presented here examines the attitudes towards business ethics of Finnish and American business students from the Southern states. The findings indicate that the differences between the attitudes of these groups are small and essentially linked to the strength of their position. Both see deliberation on moral issues as part of a business managers job and believe that managers should participate in the solving of social problems. Both Finns and Americans make a distinction between acting legally and ethically, and both endorse cultural relativism.

compare the attitudes of Finnish and American business students towards general issues of business ethics with a focus on ethical dilemmas in international business. This sociological study is meant to be a purely descriptive one, and no causal factors are sought. It was conducted at the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) during spring, 1991, and at the University of South Carolina (USC) during the fall semester of the same year.

Methodology Representing the new generation of managers, business students are an important group with strong potential impact on both the everyday practice of and the principles governing business. On the other hand, within the realm of multinational business, an increasing number of managers and others are witnessing a clash between the norms and attitudes of different cultures towards basic questions of right and wrong. The importance of cross-cultural research on the differences in ethical standards should be assessed against this background. While cross-cultural studies are plentiful, only a few have compared the ethical standards of business students of different cultures (Wafa et al.). The aim of the survey reported here is to
Leni Grnbaum has graduated from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration with international business as her major. She spent the fall 1991 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, where this survey was done.

In Helsinki, Finland, the population of the survey included the students of the HSE studying for their basic degree, which is comparable to the masters degree in the American system. No distinction was made as to the home towns, or counties, of the students. It was assumed that the Finnish culture is homogeneous and that the regional origins of the respondents do not influence their answers. In the beginning of the fall semester 1990 the number of the population was of 2,976. In Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A., the population consisted of the American undergraduate business students of the USC as well as those studying for their masters degree. Only those who were from the Southern States (i.e. Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas) were included to ensure homogeneity. At the beginning of the fall semester, the number of the population was of 3,328.

Journal of Business Ethics 16: 451463, 1997. 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Leni Grnbaum Collection of data In Helsinki, the purpose of the survey was explained when handing out the questionnaire, and the respondents were asked to return the filled questionnaire either immediately after responding, or to a box located in the hall of the schools main building. The names of the respondents were listed on a separate piece of paper for possible use in a longitudinal study. This procedure may have limited the reliability of the data to some extent. However, its overall influence should not be too big. In Columbia, the professors of the classes from the random sample were contacted and their permission to hand out the questionnaire was asked. The purpose of the survey was explained to the respondents, the graduate students were asked to specify their standing (whether Ph.D., MBA, or other), and the questionnaires were handed out. They were collected immediately after answering. Blalock takes up the issue of disguising the purposes of the measurement in attitude surveys either in the questions asked, or in the presentation of the survey to the respondents (Blalock, 1970, pp. 9495). Neither of these procedures was regarded necessary in this survey.

In the Finnish survey, the randomness of the sample was reached by handing out the questionnaires in different locations of both buildings of the school at different hours of the day, including the late evening hours, so as to reach the greatest variety of students. The questionnaires were handed to all students present at a specific location at a specific hour without personal preferences. It is assumed that all students come to the school at one time or another, and that this sampling method can therefore be seen as random, as opposed to hit-or-miss (Blalock, 1970, p. 55). The number of questionnaires handed out was 203, of which 147 were returned. In Columbia, a stratified sample was needed to reach all groups of students. The sampling was done by: (1) Taking a random sample of all business administration and economics classes. From the list of classes, some were excluded before the sampling: (a) TVclasses; (b) classes from the professional MBA program; (c) internship classes as well as thesis and other classes, the students of which were impossible to reach for practical reasons; (d) classes of more than 85 students because of the probable unwillingness of the professor to allow the handing out of the questionnaire, (2) taking a random freshman class from the list of all freshmen classes of calculus and science. This was necessary because at the USC, freshmen are not allowed to take any business administration or economics classes. After subtracting the questionnaires of nonbusiness, non-American students, those of students from the Northern states, and those of Ph.D. students, the American sample was 199. The non-answered questions were regarded as unwillful omissions in both samples, and the incomplete questionnaires have been included.

Certainty The Finnish results are known with a certainty of 90% not to vary more than 7% from the actual data. The American results are known with the same certainty not to vary more than 6% from the actual data.

Study instrument The survey method has been widely used in business ethics research, starting with Baumharts (1961) study in the 1960s. The questionnaire for this survey (see appendix) was designed to include both general questions on the attitudes of the respondents towards business ethics as well as questions pertaining to how the respondents perceived certain basic ethical dilemmas involved

Ethics and Finnish and American Business in international business. An ordinal scale with five alternative answers was chosen. As one of the basic problems of attitude surveys, Blalock mentions the level of generality of the questions, which means that the questions have to be specific enough to be relevant to the respondent, but on the other hand generalizable so that they can be applied in different contexts (Blalock, 1970, pp. 9296). To overcome this difficulty, the questionnaire was reviewed together with philosopher Heta Hyry, who teaches business ethics at the HSE. Reliability and validity

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Translation In the translation of the questionnaire the backtranslation method was used, where the questionnaire is first translated into the target language and then blindly translated back to the source language (Brislin, 1973, pp. 4041). The first phase of the original translation was completed with the help of a native American business student from one of the Southern states, staying in Finland. The first English version was back-translated blindly into Finnish by a teacher of English at the HSE. The result was compared to the original formulation of the questions. No differences in meaning were found between the two, although the terminology and expressions were somewhat modified so as to make the questions easier to understand. In Columbia, the questionnaire was reviewed by both a teacher and a member of the staff at the College of Business Administration to ensure that it was easily understood and that no misinterpretations would occur. At this point, the legends of the response alternatives were changed from agree to strongly agree, etc. The background assumption was that Americans are readier to express their opinions in a stronger way than Finns. To avoid inaccuracies in measurement (Eskola, 1973), the questionnaire was pilot tested on 5 students before being handed out both in Helsinki and Columbia. In Columbia, the formulation of two of the questions was changed after this field test so as to make their meaning clearer.

The reliability of the survey was ensured through handing out the questionnaire to all respondents in a similar setting in their respective schools. To check the validity of measurement, the crosscheck method was used: a cross-check question was incorporated into the questionnaire. Questions 10 and 13 measure the same thing. If they correlate strongly, the questionnaire is considered to have strong reliability. It is difficult to assess the validity of the survey. Firstly, it should be emphasized that it aims at comparing precisely the attitudes, not the probable behavior of the respondents. Secondly, it is probable that many respondents do not have work experience, which is likely to influence their attitudes to a great extent. The basic difficulty with the survey, one inherent in all attitude measurements, is the quality of data with respect to the dishonesty conscious or unconscious of the respondents. As pointed out by Naroll, they may be inclined to give answers they anticipate the researcher to expect, or answers which they see as socially acceptable (Naroll, 1973, p. 265). This is all the more likely in a survey which focuses on the ethical beliefs, as the evaluations of good or bad are at the core of any culture. Moreover, the vivid debate on business ethics and ethical abuses of firms may further inforce the tendency to censure any unacceptable answers. Because of the limitations described above, the survey must be taken as measuring a balance between the real attitudes of respondents, and their views of what is acceptable or unacceptable, in other words what they perceive as being the common morality of their culture. From this point of view, the validity of the study can be expected to be high. Because of the reasons mentioned, the questions of the survey were formulated in a very general manner. The results were obtained by cross-tabulation of the data. First, the distribution of the respondents according to sex, age, and standing are presented, and significant differences are analyzed. Thereafter, the frequencies of the different answers to the questions are presented in tables to facilitate comparison between the

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Leni Grnbaum check whether the respondents answers were independent of his or her standing. This will be treated in connection with the results of the cross-tabulations. If the answers were found to be independent of the respondents standing, it was assumed that this would be the case in Finland, too. This is probable because the education structure of the HSE is more flexible than that of the USC in the respect that the order of the classes is more freely chosen by the student. Also, due to this structure, students of different standings mix much more than what seems to be the case at the USC. As indicated by the sample, the business students at the USC are also, on average, younger than those of the HSE. This would indicate a stronger impact of their standing on their answers. Because of the above mentioned reason, the Finnish students answers can be assumed to be independent of his or her standing. If the sample were not to be found representative of the population but the standing of the respondent and his or her answers independent of each other, then the results of the study are to be regarded as reliable. The 6th category of standing, other, represents those respondents who were excluded from the sample. Therefore, only 5 classes will be presented. The sample was not representative of the population: the sample included 2.5% freshmen as opposed to 25% in the population. Similarly the percentage of sophomores was 24.1% in the sample versus 15% in the population. For juniors, the percentages were 17.6% versus 18%, but for seniors 43.7% versus 22%, and for graduate students 12.1% versus 20% in the population. Therefore, for the results of the study to be reliable, the standing of the students and their answers should be independent of each other.

samples. In this instance, although the scale is ordinal, the arithmetic mean is used. The reason for this choice is that the mean is considered a representative number which makes the comparison of the samples easier and more exact. After the presentation of the questions, important differences are analyzed.

Frequencies Sex In the Finnish sample, there were 70 females (47.6%) and 77 males (52.4%). The American sample included 82 females (41.2%) and 117 males (58.8%).

Age In both samples, the two first and the two last age categories were summed up because, in Finland, both the first and the last category had extremely low frequencies, and in the U.S., the last category (over 30 years) had such a low number of frequencies. The new classes were 24 or under, in the Finnish sample 103 respondents (70%) and in the American sample 182 respondents (91.5%), and 25 or over, which amounted to 44 respondents (30%) in the Finnish sample and only 17 respondents (8.5%) in the American sample. The unevenness of the distribution was unexpected and caused some difficulties in the interpretation of the results, as many cells in the cross-tabulations remained either empty of had frequencies less than 5. Therefore, in future studies, the age categories will have to be considered anew.

Standing The American questionnaire asked for the standing of the respondent, that is how many years he or she had been studying. This information was needed to see whether the sample was representative of the population, and also to

Citizenship The American version of the questionnaire asked the citizenship of the respondent. This was needed to determine which respondents to include in the sample. Permanent U.S. citizens with at least 10 years in the U.S. would have been

Ethics and Finnish and American Business considered as Americans (sharing the same values), would there have been any. In Finland, information on the nationality of the respondent was not needed as it would have been easy to distinguish any foreign nationals when handing out the questionnaire (the foreign students at the Helsinki School do not speak Finnish). In the American version, the home state of the respondent was asked, because only those respondents originating from a Southern state were included in the sample. The question on the student having or not having taken a business course is not in the realm of this study, and was added to the questionnaire only because of a personal interest.

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3. A business manger cannot afford to deliberate on moral issues The question was formulated openly, so that the word afford can be understood either to referring to the profitability of the firm, or to the career of the manager. On this point, the attitudes of American and Finnish students differ clearly. Although both groups disagree with the statement, the Americans tend to agree more, while the Finns, as a group, reject the statement quite unanimously.

The questionnaire: background of the questions and results 1. In business, honesty pays in the long run The question was formulated so as to exclude any short-sighted consequences of honesty. Honesty can be understood in different ways, for instance leaving certain things unsaid can be honesty for one person, but not for another. No significant differences between the Finnish and the American sample were found. On the average, the Finns tend to believe more in honesty in business, but their answers are more widely scattered than those of Americans.

4. When people are faced with moral problems, emotions and intuition weigh more than rational arguments The question aims at measuring the beliefs of the respondents as to the impact of emotions and intuition in decision making. The means of both groups are surprisingly close to each other, showing that the respondents think that emotions and intuition weigh slightly more than rational arguments.

5. When the company that I represent conducts business in another country, it should act according to the ethical norms of that country This statement measures the aspect of cultural relativism in the views of the respondents. One should, however, be cautious with the interpretation. It is possible that the respondents consider the ethical norms of a foreign country as relatively alike those of the home country, for example the cutting of the hand of a robber according to the Moslem concept of justice would barely be supported. The groups differ clearly on this statement: the Finns unanimously adopt an extremely relativist position, while the Americans, although favoring the relativist view, disagree somewhat more with the statement. It is important to remember the difference in the sizes of the countries; it is probable that Finns feel obliged to comply with foreign norms, while Americans can afford to try

2. A persons actions may appear unselfish, but mostly he/she is concerned with his/her own interest The question focuses on the issue of egoism (as opposed to utilitarianism), but the word mostly is open to multiple interpretations. The Americans tend, on average, to disagree more with the statement, and were also more consistent among themselves. No significant differences were found, however.

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Leni Grnbaum

Fig. 1.

Ethics and Finnish and American Business to export their own values because of their major cultural influence.

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6. The decisions of a business manger should be based on the well-being of his/her company, not of the whole economy The question is based on Friedmans assertion that the responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The respondent can choose to answer either according to this view, or according to the view that businesses have a liability to contribute to the well-being of the economy. The statement does not give the option of companies contributing to the well-being of the economy through their own well-being. Both groups display a favorable attitude, although moderate, towards Friedmans view. Especially the Finnish respondents disagree strongly among themselves, as shown by the large standard deviation.

Corrupt Practices Act not to use bribes in their business transactions. The answers of both groups are characterized by their very uneven distribution, as evidenced by the high standard deviations. The Americans disagree very clearly with the taking of bribes, while the Finns, as a group, are on the border of agreeing or disagreeing. In the light of the FCPA, it is surprising that the American group did not disagree even more extremely. Moreover, the disagreement of both groups seems to contradict the answers to question 5, which advocated the adoption of local norms when in a foreign county.

9. Social ( for example environmental) problems should be solved by the government, not by business managers This statement refers to Friedmans thesis in a more concrete and specific manner than question 6. Both groups disagree quite strongly with the statement. The Americans are more consistent as a group, while the Finns are divided. The respondents are ready to distribute some of the burden of solving social ills to business, while they hold the well-being of the firm as the general basis for decision making, as evidenced by question 6.

7. The holding companies established by international concerns are unacceptable because they are a form of tax avoidance This issue is among the criticisms often presented against MNCs because by avoiding taxes they can undermine the tax policies of national governments. Although both groups disagree with the statement, the Americans are fairly unanimously close to the limit of agreeing. The Finns express a stronger negative attitude towards the view, but also disagree more among themselves.

10. When a firm acts according to the law, it cannot act morally wrong Is legal equivalent to ethical? This is the question that the statement addresses. The Finnish respondents definitely reject the statement, and the Americans adopt the same position, although in moderation. Clearly, the students make a difference between legal and ethical behavior, which leaves place for the ethical decisions of the individual.

8. In some countries, the taking of bribes is customary in business. When the firm that I represent conducts business in these countries, I can take bribes as well This statement is really a sub-statement of question 5 and gives a concrete shape to the ethical norms of a foreign country. While this is an ethical question to the Finns, it is a legal one for the Americans who are bound by the Foreign

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Leni Grnbaum display a belief that foreign businesses should act according to the ethical norms of their home countries. Especially the Finns show an extreme attitude in this respect, measured both by the mean and the standard deviation. The Americans are a little more allowing. Compared with question 5, both groups tend to emphasize the adoption of their home country norms by foreign firms, more than the adoption of the moral conceptions of the foreign country by firms from their home countries.

11. When facing moral problems, my decisions are influenced by: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f ) (g) expected punishments and rewards law and order the expectations of society principles of equality and human rights consequences for other people the acceptance of those close to me religious conviction

This question refers to the ground on which the respondents base their moral decisions. The best known framework of individual moral development is by Lawrence Kohlberg, and many of the parameters included here are from his classification. A short question like this one is, however, insufficient for drawing any conclusions on the level of moral development of the respondents. The most extensive presentation of Kohlbergs work is in his Essays on Moral Development (1981). The answering patterns of both groups are remarkably similar: while all the mentioned factors have an impact, the most important parameters are the expectations of society and the principles of human rights. The Finns also strongly prefer to base their decisions on the consequences for other people, while the Americans display a more egoistic approach in this respect. The consequences for other people may, however, be included in the Americans stronger religious conviction which, however, does not count among the most important grounds for decisions. The Finnish group does not rely on religious values as a whole, but there is strong disagreement inside the group.

13. In business, that which is legal is also ethically acceptable. This statement cross-checks question 10 in the American version. When cross-tabulated, these two question correlate almost significantly. In both groups, the means of the two are reasonably close, with a slight difference in favor of question 10. This can be due to the more concrete formulation of question 10, which may have caused a stronger reaction in the respondent. When comparing the answers of both groups, the Finns clearly disagree more with the statement than the Americans, who are on the verge of agreeing. Both groups have high figures of standard deviation. The same conclusion can be drawn, as for question 10, that legality does not automatically translate into ethics.

14. In some countries, the giving of bribes is customary in business. When the firm that I represent conducts business in these countries, we can give bribes as well This question is the counterpart of question 8, which addressed the taking of bribes by the individual. The giving of bribes is referred to as done by us, which gives the statement a different focus. Generally, the giving of bribes by the firm is considered more acceptable than the personal taking of bribes. However, the two groups differ clearly in their views: the Americans disagree with the practice while the Finns agree, and both

12. When a foreign company conducts business in the U.S./Finland, it should act according to the moral conceptions of the American/Finnish society. This question is the counterpart of question 5, and measures the reliance on cultural relativism in the case of a foreign company operating in the home country of the respondent. The American and the Finnish respondents

Ethics and Finnish and American Business are characterized by strong disagreement among respondents. The same points are surprising, as with question 8: (1) that these answers are so different from those displayed in question 5, which addressed the adherence to the ethical norms of the foreign country; (2) that the Americans do not disagree more strongly with the practice, given the FCPA.

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frequencies of the male respondents were concentrated in the two first alternatives, namely completely agree and mostly agree, while the females were more scattered. In the light of the above it seems that the men and women included in this sample differ to some extent in the basis of their decision making and in their attitudes towards the giving and taking of bribes.

Cross-tabulation of background variables with questions The test used was the Chi-square test. In this instance, only the most interesting results will be presented.

Age as background variable Question 14 was the only one, in which a significant correlation between the frequencies and the age of the respondent was found, and even here only in the Finnish sample. The statement addressed the giving of bribes, and the frequencies of the respondents 25 years old or more tended to be concentrated in the two first alternatives, namely completely agree and mostly agree, while the younger group was more evenly distributed.

Sex as background variable The answers to question 6, which concerns the basis for decision-making of the business manager, correlated quite significantly with the sex of the respondent for both groups. In both groups, the correlation was difficult to analyze, as the distribution of frequencies was very scattered. For instance, of the American females only 3.7% completely agreed, while 17.9% of the males displayed the same attitude (this is mentioned although one cell remained empty, because of the strength of the correlation and its counterpart in the Finnish sample). In the Finnish sample, only 10% of the females completely agreed while 31% of the males adopted this position. Strangely enough, the answers of question 9 which measured more or less the same thing, do not correlate with the sex of the respondents. The answers of question 8 too, showed significant correlation with the sex of the respondent, but only for the American group. The question addressed the issue of taking bribes. The frequencies of the female respondents were concentrated in the answers mostly disagree and completely disagree, while the distribution of males was more even. A significant correlation was found for the Finnish group among the answers to question 14, which also addressed the giving of bribes. The

Standing as background variable The only question where a significant correlation could be found would be question 3, which asked whether a business manager could afford to deliberate on moral issues. Unfortunately, the sample was too small to draw any conclusions from this potential correlation, as too many cells were empty. Still, it may be inferred that the standing of the respondent is independent of his or her answers, as no other potential significant correlations were found. Therefore, it is concluded that the results can be relied on. It is also assumed that in the Finnish sample, as in the American, standing does not correlate with the given answers.

Limitations This study has its limitations, which are, for the most part, associated with the sampling. Firstly, the samples were too small, the certainty of the

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Leni Grnbaum Both groups showed a strong belief in cultural relativism, and believed that a firm should act according to when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Their strong attitudes on this general level conflicted with their views on the adherence to bribery, which the Americans disagreed with stronger than the Finns, who even adopted a favorable position towards giving bribes. The biggest differences between the Finnish and American business students were on the issues of moral deliberation of business managers, which the Finns accentuated more than the Americans; in the cultural relativist position, adopted more moderately, although strongly, by the Americans than by the Finns; and the giving and taking of bribes, which the Americans rejected more clearly than the Finns. The stronger impact of religious conviction on the moral decisions of the American sample was another difference.

results taken into account (this applies to the Finnish sample especially). The American sample was too small because of the needed categories of standing. Secondly, the Finnish sampling method lacked precision, although the sample is believed to be representative of the population. The Finnish questionnaire should have included a question of the standing of the respondent, as well as his or her nationality. It is very improbable that this would have had impact on the results, but for the sake of exactitude, these points should have been taken into account. The representativeness of the samples was not checked with respect to the age of the respondents in either school. At the USC, the representativeness of the sample with respect to the sex of the students was not checked. These are considered the methodological limitations of the study. However, they are not believed to cause any falsification of the results. The other limitations are connected with the reliability and the validity of the study, and were discussed under this heading.

Future research More cross-cultural research on the attitudes of students towards business ethics should be conducted. Although not yet in the work life, business students represent the future generation of managers. Especially in the international context, the power of multinationals and the scope of their activities require that more should be known about the grounds for the decisions of the managers. This knowledge would make it possible to prepare the future mangers for their international involvement, and reduce the risk of one-sided or narrow minded decisions which do not take into account the important aspects of cultural differences and differences in levels of economic development. Also, as cross-cultural studies in this field are published, they contribute to making the field known to those who work in and with companies, and reduce misunderstandings or false assumptions, which often at the root of unethical conduct.

Discussion The results of this study show that both the Finnish and the American business students having participated in this study believe in honesty in business, although they tend to think that people act in their own self-interest, and that peoples decisions are based somewhat more on emotions than on rational arguments. Both groups see deliberation on moral issues as a part of a business managers job, and strongly believe that business managers are liable to participating in the solving of social problems. The decisions of business managers should, according to the respondents, however, rest on the wellbeing of the company, not that of the economy. Both Finns and Americans made a clear distinction between acting legally and ethically. The groups displayed differences in the factors which influenced their decisions in moral problems; while both agreed on the impact of all other factors, the Finns were more influenced by the consequences of their actions for other people, and the Americans by religious conviction.

Ethics and Finnish and American Business Appendix

SURVEY Dear student of business administration at the University of South Carolina. You have been chosen for a survey to be done at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland, Europe. The survey aims at comparing the attitudes towards business ethics of business students of different nationalities. Please answer the following questions. All answers will remain anonymous and confidential. For the survey to succeed it is very important that you answer all the questions carefully. They will be in two parts: 1) background information about yourself, and 2) the questions concerning business ethics. I want to thank you in advance for your cooperation. Yours, Leni Grnbaum Home state: 1 South-Carolina 2 Business ethics course: 1 have taken one 2 have not taken one

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QUESTIONNAIRE Below you will find a series of statements of which people think differently. Circle the alternative which best corresponds to your position. 1 2 3 4 5 completely agree mostly agree do not know mostly disagree completely disagree

Below the questions, you will find a space reserved for your comments. 01. In business, honesty pays in the long run. 1 2 3 4 5

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Sex: 1 female 2 male Age: 1 under 20 years 2 20 to 24 years 3 25 to 29 years 4 over 30 years Major (school): 1 business major 2 non-business major 3 other dont know Standing: 1 freshman 2 sophomore 3 junior 4 senior 5 graduate 6 Citizenship: 1 U.S. citizen 2 permanent U.S. residence with at least 10 years in the U.S. 3 non-U.S. citizen

Comments

02. A persons actions may appear unselfish, but mostly he/she is concerned with his/her own interest. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

03. A business manger cannot afford to deliberate on moral issues. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

04. When people are faced with moral problems, emotions and intuition weigh more than rational arguments. 1 2 3 4 5

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Comments

Leni Grnbaum
10. When a firm acts according to the law, it cannot act morally wrong. 1 2 3 4 5

05. When the company that I represent conducts business in another country, it should act according to the ethical norms of that country. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

Comments

06. The decisions of a business manager should be based on the well-being of his/her company, not of the whole economy. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

11. When facing moral problems, my decisions are influenced by: a) expected punishments or rewards 1 2 3 4 5 b) law and order 1 2 3 4 5 c) the expectations of society 1 2 3 4 5 d) principles of equality and human rights 1 2 3 4 5 e) consequences for other people 1 2 3 4 5 f ) the acceptance of those close to me 1 2 3 4 5 g) religious conviction 1 2 3 4 5 Comments

07. The holding companies established by international concerns are unacceptable because they are a form of tax avoidance. 1 2 3 4 5

12. When a foreign company conducts business in the U.S., it should act according to the moral conceptions of the American society. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

Comments

08. In some countries, the taking of bribes is customary in business. When the firm that I represent conducts business in these countries, I can take bribes as well. 1 2 3 4 5

13. In business, that which is legal is also ethically acceptable. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

Comments

09. Social (for example environmental) problems should be solved by the government, not by business managers. 1 2 3 4 5

14. In some countries, the giving of bribes is customary in business. When the firm that I represent conducts business in these countries, we can give bribes as well. 1 2 3 4 5

Comments

Comments

Ethics and Finnish and American Business References Books

Blalock, H. M., Jr: 1970, An Introduction to Social Research (Englewood Cliffs). Carr, A.: 1983, Is Business Bluffing Ethical?, in T. Beauchamp and Bowie (eds.), Ethical Theory and Business, 2nd ed. (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ), pp. 9299. Eskola, A.: 1973, Sosiologian tutkimusmenetelmt 4th ed. (WSOY, Porvoo). Friedman, M.: 1983, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits, in T. Donaldson and P. Werhane (eds.), Ethical Issues in Business Philosophical Approach, 2nd ed. (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ), pp. 239244. Kohlberg, L.: 1984, The Psychology of Moral Development. The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages (Harper & Row, San Francisco, CA). Naroll, R.: Some Thoughts on Comparative Method in Cultural Anthropology, in H. M. Blalock and A. Blalock (eds.), Methodology in Social Research, pp. 239276. Wafa, S. A.: 1989, A Cross-Cultural Study of Business Ethical Standards among Graduate Students from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United States of America (dissertation at the United States University, Ann Arbor, Michigan).

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Articles
Baumhart, R. C.: 1961, How Ethical Are Businessmen?, Harvard Business Review (Aug. 7), 7-177. Becker, H. and D. J. Fritzsche: 1987, Business Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Managers Attitudes, Journal of Business Ethics 6(4), 289296. Brislin, R. W.: 1983, Cross-Cultural Research in Psychology, Annual Review of Psychology 346, 363400. Lee, K. H.: 1981, Ethical Beliefs in Marketing Management: A Cross-Cultural Study, European Marketing Journal 1, 5867. Preble, J. and A. Reichel: 1988, Attitudes Towards Business Ethics of Future Managers in the U.S. and Israel, Journal of Business Ethics 7, 941950. Tsalikis, J. and D. J. Fritzsche: Business Ethics: A Literature Review with a Focus on Marketing Ethics, Journal of Business Ethics 9(9), 695743.

Others
Hyry, H.: Discussion with H. Hyry in the spring of 1991.

Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Runeberginkatu 1416, 00100 Helsinki, Finland.