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Ethical Challenges in Business : Global Perspective Falling trade barriers, ever changing political reforms, emergence of new technologies and flow of capital across economies in the name of globalization have eliminated the boundaries of the world and have transformed it into one global village. Earlier, under this perspective, the home country’s laws were viewed as dominant, but now-a-days companies have understood that the entire world is their market and that they have to adapt their business practices to different environments and cultures. Global business is dominated by the presence of an increasing number of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) that have spread across continents. But instead of creating an integrated global village, these firms are weaving webs of production, consumption and finance that bring most economic benefits only to a third of the world’s people while marginalizing the remaining two thirds. Other issues such as the exploitation of the environmental and human resources (sweat shops) for the benefit of the developed nations are an issue of ethical consideration. Are MNCs maintaining high ethical standards? Are their activities beneficial to both the companies and the natives? Moreover, globalisation has impacted different societies differently and has brought forth divergent ethical issues, depending on their economic systems, maturity or otherwise of their governments and policies and the degree of awareness of their civil societies. Issues relating to ethical standards and practices of these societies have to be looked into and debated upon. The present Globalization process focuses only on globalizing the flow of goods, services and capital whereas labour seems to be neglected. Environmental problems and human rights issues have been excluded and as a result, the farmers, the trade unions and environmentalists in different parts of the world, especially the third world are opposed to globalization. One of the stated aims of various WTO talks is to come to an agreement that could combat poverty among vast sections of humanity. The primary way the WTO hopes to reduce poverty is by encouraging free trade. Free trade reforms are supposed to benefit the poor but have been condemned for not advancing these reforms further. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund seem to be dominated by the developed nations and the Third World gets neglected. How fair is it? Global fora such as The Caux Round Table (CRT) and The Global Compact have been constituted to promote fundamental ethical norms for the entire process of business decision making and to ensure sustained profitability within the framework of social responsibility, human rights, labour standards and environmental responsibilities. It is high time that industry and business with cross-border linkages realize their responsibilities to society with a view to ensuring sustainable development especially of poor and developing societies. This could be ensured only if they follow norms and ethical behaviour which have been propagated by organizations such as Global Compact and CRT. In this session, we hope to take a close look at these issues and stimulate further in-depth deliberation on the matters that impact “Ethical Challenges in Business : Global Perspective”.
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