One of the central arguments in this thesis underlies on the varieties of cultural values found across the globe. Culture is a set of core virtues of ethical values. These cultural practices are expressions or manifestations of these core virtues. We can also argue that our unified ethics, with an emphasis on character, can be an important ingredient in anti-corruption programs.
We define corruption broadly to include intra-private, intra-public, and public-private behavior. In our view, corruption encompasses bribery, extortion, nepotism, favoritism, and other discriminatory practices. Our position is that, although there are degrees of corruption, it fundamentally consists of any behavior or practice that is unjustifiably exclusionary or obstructionist. It is a behavior that imposes unjustifiable limits on human dignity and integrity or opportunities for the fulfillment of human potential. Thus, we maintain that the maximum inclusiveness or universality in the context of our unified ethics is the key element in any anti-corruption effort.
Beneath the surface of cultures are fundamental human needs, characteristics, and qualities that humankind can morally satisfy only with universal virtues. An illustration is trust, which is cross-cultural in nature despite differences in scope or expression. For example, a business meeting for dinner between a Thai and an American for the first time went awry because the American arrived at the meeting with his attorney.
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This act offended the Thai, who interpreted the attorney’s presence as a statement that the American lacked trust in the Thai businessman. This example is not a matter of different values. Instead, it is a matter of different manifestations of the same virtues. Both the Thai and the American want and need to trust each other to do business with each other. However, their expression of that desire and need differs. The American guarantees trust with a contract. In contrast, the Thai, at least at the initial encounter, establishes the start of trust with a handshake. In both societies, trust is a virtue but in each society trust is expressed differently.
The difference in expression, not in the importance placed upon trust, accounts for the confusion. We suggest, then, that universal core virtues constitute what Carroll and Gannon (1997: 97) refer to as ‘hyper norms,’ and are fundamental principles of human existence. They serve as the basis for evaluating lower-level norms, which are often in conflict in various cultures and even within cultures such as between men and women.
With regard to corruption, cultural conditions and practices are sometimes accommodations to the perceptions and realities of injustice, rather than the products of fundamental human traits. Carroll and Gannon (1997: 211) contend that nepotism and other in-group behaviors may constitute a functional response to an uncertain world, a feeling that the administration of law is unjust and that society treats some groups fairly while others are not.
Thus, a natural response might be to encourage trust within an in-group by using nepotism to solidify that trust. They cite Robert Putnam’s (1993: 345) discussion of the rise of the Mafia in southern Italy as a response to the autocratic rule of the 11th-century monarch, King Federico. As a mediating institution, the Mafia initially provided justice and the normalization of life in the face of royal tyranny. Eventually, however, it, too, became corrupt and oppressive.
The essential point is that this experience, as well as others in Italian history, led to such contemporary practices as what some non-Italians call tax fraud, but what Italians consider as reasonable measures against a corrupt and oppressive bureaucracy. Italians do not reject trust as a virtue, but their historical experience erodes their capacity to trust, at least in terms of government. Trust remains a virtue but is considered an ideal that is difficult to attain under their circumstances.
Regardless, however, of specific historical experiences or particular cultural practices as possible explanations of attitudes toward corruption, we are still faced with contemporary cross- cultural ethical conflict and the responsibility to try to constrain or resolve it. John Kohls and Paul Buller (1994: 83), in fact, argue that such conflict will grow as the global economy grows.
According to Kohls and Buller, most serious students of ethics reject relativism, supporting,instead, the universality of ethical standards and the position that ‘cultural behavior which does not meet those standards should be identified as unethical’ (p. 31). For example, ‘supportof governments which oppress their people, ways of doing business which do not respect human life, and those which depend on deception are all unacceptable, no matter what the culture’ (pp. 31-32). In Kohls and Buller’s view, ‘cultures may make ethical mistakes just like individuals, and those which condone slavery or torture, for example, need to be enlightened, not tolerated’ (p. 32).
To Kohls and Buller, neither notions of ethical relativism nor ethical universality are satisfactory alone. Instead, they propose that the appropriate response to ethical conflicts ‘depends on the centrality of values at stake, the degree of social consensus regarding the ethical issue, the decision-maker’s ability to influence the outcome, and the level of urgency surrounding the situation’ (p. 32). Finally, after discussing several strategies for resolving ethical conflict, including education, negotiation, and collaboration, Kohls and Buller move to different types of ethical conflict and an analysis of three cases. One of their key points is that a manager, in making an ethical decision, ‘must be careful that core values are not sacrificed to preserve more peripheral values’ (p. 33).
The researcher believe that Kohls and Buller are correct in their contention that managers working in cross-cultural settings must take into consideration the relational positions of the parties toward the ethical conflicts that will inevitably arise. Considerations of specific strategies must occur in the context of the situation at hand. But such strategic considerations do not imply relativism or situation ethics. Rather, they imply a sophisticated understanding of cross-cultural ethical interaction and a developed commitment to the core virtues underlying all cultures and all moral systems. Neither falling on one’s sword nor capitulating to ‘when in Rome’ thinking is adequate to meet the ethical challenges inherent in increasing global interdependence.
