3-1.4: A Social Contracts Approach to Relativism in Global Commerce

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Del curso dictado por University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Global Impact: Business Ethics

43 calificaciones

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Global Impact: Business Ethics

43 calificaciones

Curso 6 de 7 en SpecializationGlobal Challenges in Business

Global business ethics is the study and analysis of how ethics and global business are connected. How we should treat each other and our organizations in global and local contexts is the topic of this course. Business ethics and corporate responsibility are inherent in global commerce. Commerce is about markets, and markets entail exchanges between people and groups of people. So commerce is about human relationships, and indeed, it could not be otherwise. One of the important challenges in global business is working out the extent of these obligations in the interrelationships between businesses and the particular local cultures in which that business operates. The ethical issues arising from these engagements, the kinds of values-based considerations out of which an organization negotiates with local concerns, and how an organization can be both an enabler of economic value-added while respecting cultural differences will be topics of this course. Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to: • Become morally sensitive to ethical dilemmas in global commerce • Identify ethical issues in global business • Master stakeholder analysis • Address issues from more than one point of view • Use a well-reasoned process by which to arrive at ethically-defensible decisions • Evaluate good and weak arguments • Defend your conclusions This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

De la lección

Module 3: In Rome should we do as the Romans do?

Be able to distinguish egoism, role relativism, cultural relativism, ethical relativism and some forms of universalism. Apply these distinctions to the “Greed is Good” speech on the attached video. Apply these distinctions using the framework introduced in Module 1.

3-1.1: Resolving the Bayer CropScience Dilemma4:10

3-1.2: What Price Safety?4:47

3-1.3a: The Issue(s) of Relativism Part. 17:02

3-1.3b: The Issue(s) of Relativism Part. 210:19

3-1.4: A Social Contracts Approach to Relativism in Global Commerce5:50

3-1.5: A Social Contract's Approach to Relativism in Global Commerce Review2:09

Conoce a los instructores

Patricia Werhane
Visiting Professor
Department of Business Administration

In dealing with relativism,

one way to think about it is through social contract theory.

The idea that companies, and of course countries,

have contracts with the individuals, their individual citizens,

their individual managers, their individual employees.

And how do you treat those individuals as human beings in various cultures?

[MUSIC]

So social contracts are implicit or

explicit agreements between businesses and communities.

No business can operate without permission of the community in which it's operating.

Now maybe just implicit, nobody pays any attention, they just come in,

build a factory, so what.

Or maybe they have a contract with the government or the local community.

Whatever that happens, companies who move into new communities have

obligations to follow laws and to respect customs, that sort of what is expected.

So there is always these micro contracts between the community, and

the organization, and those are contextual.

Those depend on the community, the community's values, and their laws.

They're social group contracts, they're culturally relative, and they can change.

So one of the questions we have to ask Motorola,

does it have an implicit social contract with Nambu, and their cultural mores?

Maybe, maybe not, and then in addition there are these macro social contracts.

Those are the general principles we talked about in the last section.

General principles or moral minimums that set moral standards across all nations,

and communities, and organizations, and social groups, and even individuals.

So these are called, by some people, we call these hypernorms.

These are the big norms,

without which commerce can't operate without which you and I can't operate.

Because if we can't live with some general moral minimums,

life is going to be pretty nasty, brutish, and short.

One of the core assumptions about the global economic community, and

that's where all of you live and all of you operate.

Is that all human beings and all organizations are constrained

by these general moral minimums or macro social contracts.

And that economic arrangements are actually more efficient and

effective when these are in operative.

But at the same time, every nation, every community, every organization,

every individual enjoys what we call moral free space.

That's my own values, my micro norms, if you'd like, so

we have the macro and the micro.

And these norms are within communities, for example, gift giving.

In the United States you're not expected to give gifts among organizations, or

among managers, or among presidents of organizations, although frankly they do.

But in other countries, you must bring a gift,

it would be rude if I came to visit you and didn't have a gift, is that a bribe?

No, it's just part of the way we do things.

And then professional standards often are different.

The professional standards, for

example, of physicians are often different than journalists.

And of religious people, and religious people who are ministers, or

pastors, or priests, or oman in a religious

context are supposed to keep the secrets that their parishioners tell them.

But in health care, you never keep secrets, you want people

to know what the problem with this person is, and what's wrong with them.

And in journalism, it's pure transparency,

there are not supposed to be secrets, there are but not.

So notice we have different values in different sorts of organizations, and

of course, between religions.

We know that religions have different kinds of values, and

that's fine and we want to respect those.

And local customs, like how do you eat?

Americans use forks and knives endlessly, many of you eat with chopsticks,

some of you eat with your fingers.

And some of you just pick up the bowl, and is there anything wrong with any of those?

No, nothing they're fine,

they don't conflict with any general principles at all.

It would be crazy if someone said,

my goodness eating with a fork is morally wrong, well, I'd have to starve I suppose.

But notice that as long as these small customs don't interfere with hypernorms,

with general candidates for moral minimums, then they are all fine.

So some candidates for

these hypernorms are the UN principles which I've already listed.

And then various moral minimums like don't lie, cheat, steal,

murder people, murder is not so good, torture, engage a slave, or child labor.

Those are some candidates for hypernorms that are considered morally wrong.

And then some other candidates are positive obligations, be fair,

be trustworthy, respect people's freedom, don't bribe,

respect the natural environment, respect property rights, very difficult.

So the question we get back to is what are Motorola's obligations

to respect Nambu customs?

Or is there a general standard of not physically

harming anybody ever that supersedes those customs?

[MUSIC]

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