A Strategic and Tactical Approach to Global Business Ethics, Second Edition

The subject of ethics within the commercial environment has gone beyond its traditional application due to three primary factors and a host of additional elements. Existing and potential global managers need to be aware of the ramifications of limiting the conventional vision of ethical applications to their operations as the scope of the modern rendition of the term has changed. It has morphed into a wider more extensive meaning having a greater effect on the successful performance of transnational companies than ever before. Although a good start, international firms can no longer be satisfied with simply orchestrating a code of conduct to combat laps in ethical considerations a historical defensive or reactive approach. It has become a judgment mechanism, part of the applied criteria that both consumers use to measure a company alongside the quality and price of the products and services they offer. Even potential employees question the ethical standing of the firms they wish to join. Managers need to get positively proactive as ethical related areas have exploited in importance as value added elements in the corporate mix. The peripheral limbs on the morality tree, corporate social responsibility and responsible management, have matured into major branches eclipsing the issues fundamental ethical roots from which they grew. They have to be more deeply integrated into strategic determinations and tactical actions. Decent acceptable conduct is not a sideline issue any more. It is a major contributor while also remaining as a significant deterrent to managing a successful sustainable global enterprise.

About the Author

Lawrence A. Beer, JD, is an attorney and accountant with senior executive tenure as president of international operations and house legal counsel to global corporations. Such experience, coupled with his own international consulting practice assisting consumer-product companies in the development and expansion of their global activities, have brought him into firsthand contact with ethical decision making in the diversified business world.

He is a retired senior lecturer at the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, teaching both MBA’s and undergraduates on international business subjects. His other books include, Tracing the Roots of Globalization and Business Principles and Essential Concepts of Cross-Cultural Management: Building on What We All Share (Business Expert Press). He is an article reviewer for the Journal of International Business Studies, a member of the Academy of International Business and Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management, as well as an editorial consultant and book contributor for various international business textbook publishers.