Ethical Attitudes of Business Professionals in China and the United States: Same or Different?

Abstract

With rapid globalization, Asian economies account for a greater proportion of world output and provide important investment opportunities. Thus understanding differences in ethical attitudes between business professionals in these countries and in the West is imperative. This cross-cultural comparison of the ethical attitudes of business professionals found that ethical attitudes of Chinese respondents were more permissive toward ethically questionable situations than were those in the United States. Additionally, in a test of explanations for ethical attitudes, the associations across cultures differed by moral foundations, formal and informal organizational characteristics, and moral issue characteristics. Implications for doing business cross-culturally are discussed.