Blackwell Reference Online

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Business ethics faces a vast array of daunting challenges in China. Many observers of China's development, particularly from outside the country, see an urgent need to address these ethical challenges, while others believe that the time for business ethics has not yet come. Because of the size of the country, with its 1.3 billion people, and the pace of change, developing business ethics in China is a highly complex task. Thus, the approach must be comprehensive as well as differentiated (see Enderle, 2003 ). To focus solely on what individuals and organizations can and should do (which is a tendency of business ethics in the USA) does not suffice; and to deal only with questions of the economic system or economic order (as many Europeans tend to understand business ethics) is not sufficient either. Instead, business ethics in China has to come to grips with all three levels: the individual, organizational and systemic. It is best expressed in Chinese by the now commonly used term jingjì lúnli , that is, ethics in the economic sphere of life, including and going beyond “business ethics” as “corporate ethics” or “management ethics.” Although it appears premature to assess the emergence of business ethics in China in the last ten or more years, four important features already have become unmistakably clear. 1  Contrary to a belief widely held in Western countries, there is no “ethical ... log in or subscribe to read full text