Business Ethics and Cultural Issues

 

Organizations and business houses today are faced with the important issue of Ethics. What is Ethics? Different authors have given various definitions to the term Ethics. The Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary defined ethics as; “the moral principles that control or influence a person’s behavior.” Crane and Matten (2007) p.8 Business Ethics 2^nd Edition, Oxford; provided the following definition, “Ethics is concerned with the study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right and wrong for a given situation. These rules and principles are called ethical theories.” In another word, ethics can be seen as moral principles or rules of behavior. For this article, ethics is discussed within the context of Business Ethics and how ethics may have an influence on business activities and decisions which may infringe on cultural issues. The term business can be referred to as a set of human activities such as production and supply of goods and services by various organizations or individuals. When ethics is discussed within the context of business activities, you are looking at organizations and individuals that are involved with human activities and these individuals has to consider how ethical considerations influence the business activities, decisions and outcomes. Business situations involve activities and business activities involve decision making. In making decisions, individuals and business people are faced with issues of right or wrong decisions. Faced with such situation, business houses and organization establishes code of ethics or Ethics standard to guide an organization and its workforce to carry out the organization activities in a correct and acceptable way. Cultural issues in relations to business activities may be a challenge to any organization or business entity when activities carried out touches on cultural issues which relates to cultural norms and values.

With changes in business trends and the technological impacts of the 21^st Century, business across international boundaries especially international and multi-national corporations are faced with situations where there is a growing and wider territorial base for social, economic and political activities, process and relation. How are these factors impacting businesses today?

This article focuses on business ethics and cultural issues while intending to do business in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Papua New Guinea is a country with a population of approximately 8.5 million. PNG is located several miles north of Australia and comprises 20 provinces with the large island divided into two parts, New Guinea to the north and Papua to the south. There are few main islands comprising the islands of New Britain, Bougainville, New Ireland and Manus. The capital city is Port Moresby. The country shares land border with Indonesia and sea border with Australia.  The majority or eighty percent of the population lives in the rural areas. PNG has over one thousand tribes with over eight hundred living languages. As a high-context cultured society, the one thousand tribes come with their cultural norms and values and doing business with Papua New Guinean can be a challenge to outsiders who have to an  extent have to navigate and try to understand the culture’s unwritten rules, norms and values.

There are many various factors that may have implications to business activities and cultural issues. Two of the challenging factors that are noted here are;

Communication and connectivity – Papua New Guinea as a country is faced with communication and connectivity problem due to its infrastructure and geographical landscape. Carrying out business activities in such a challenging environment, businesses are faced with many challenges that result in increasing costs in term of connectivity and difficulties in business operation. How does communication and connectivity impact cultural issues within a country such as Papua New Guinea. With over 800 languages, there are words and images that may infringe on cultural norms and values. While images portrayed and displayed in the print media, electronic media, WEB and television may be taken for granted in the market place through promotional activities, such images and sentences/words used may impact business operation and success as well.

Promotion and Advertising are seen as a means to communicate and persuade target customers to buy certain products or services. These two activities may be carried out through various communication modes. From advertising in any medium, through personal selling, direct marketing and other electronic marketing. Why do businesses advertise and promote products and services? Lea (2009) p.85 Introduction to the Ethics of Business, UPNG Press, quoted; “Advertising is devoted to making people believe that certain products and services are essential for their wellbeing and health when this often is far from true.” In advertising there is persuasion and convincing taking place. Depending on where these activities are being carried out, customers may sometimes be caught in situations of what is being valued in terms of their beliefs and acceptable norms.   Example; PNG has some beautiful beaches and landscapes it can boast about however, promoting such a beautiful location to the world with half naked and topless ladies in bikinis to some extent may not be successful due to the fact that it goes against certain values and beliefs. Words use as part of promotional statements may or can be interpreted or perceived differently.  To avoid cultural issues that may impact business success, ethics and the understanding of certain cultures, norms and values need to be embraced as part of any organization’s processes to avoid conflicts.

Challenges in business ethics and cultural issue may touch on the issue of trusts, confidentiality and other factors. With the age of connectivity and the expansion of operations both locally and globally, national and Multi-national Corporation need to rethink and relook on how to embrace business ethics as part of the organization’s processes. Business ethics brings with it many benefits such as enhancing reputation and good will, sustained long term growth as well as success and profit.

 

Reference:

Crane and Matten (2007) Business Ethics 2^nd Edition, Oxford

Kotler, Adam et.al (2007) Marketing 7^th Edition PEARSON

Lea (2009) Introduction to the Ethics of Business UPNG Press