Shouldn't ethics be the same regardless of what your background is? I always thought the answer to this was yes. Things like stealing and lying are obviously bad, but there are behaviors that are not the same everywhere. For example, the U.S. is a low context culture and we behave in ways here that could be considered unethical everywhere else. We often see people "tooting their own horns", taking credit for other peoples ideas, etc. Basically any behavior that will result in personal success is okay in the U.S. I think that this is because we are told from the start that we need to take care of ourselves and do whatever it takes to get to the top. High-context cultures such as Japan are much different; teamwork and compassion for others is very important. I think a lot of what goes on here in organizations may not be considered ethical in countries such as Japan. So ethics really vary across cultures, which increases the the need for every organization to have a code of ethics; box 14.3 in the textbook is a good example. While it is highly likely that every organization already has a code of ethics, they also need to show it to their employees and actually expect that everyone adheres to it.
2 comments:
I think stealing and lying are more like universally accepted moral standards rather than ethics which might differ from culture to culture.
You make a very good point about the Low and High context cultures. I notice this clearly in the e-mail communications at work with our global teams. My team and I here normally state in the emails I finished this etc., but people from Japan especially do not do this and also the communication most of the times only comes from the manager with details only on what task was finished, without any details on who did it. It normally always says somethings like " The team implemented or finished etc.," There is huge difference in how people work , communicate and behave in individualistic cultures and collectivism.
Diversity is good if it leads to brainstorming and ends up in an innovation but if you and I come from different parts of the world our diversity is bound to clash ,unless and until we are ready to make amends and accept whatever benefits not only us but our organization or even our society.Working in a multi national organization we need to put our ethics on the backburner and adopt the code of conduct that our organization offers to its employees. In that way everyone will work as a team instead of as an individual.
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