Business Ethics in East Asia: Examples in Historical Context

For organisations and management the role of business ethics is of key importance, but to what extent business ethics are actually new or fashionable or universally applicable are interesting questions. Asia has been the site of contests between competing economic and ethical views of how economic norms and institutions are organized. This book examines the evolutionary similarities and differences of institutionalizing business ethics in Asia in a historical context and in comparison to better-explored business ethics literature, both empirically and theoretically.

This collection uses both historical and contemporary cases in Japan, Korea and China to show that these countries have tried to balance their traditional business ethics norms and values with those that have been introduced from the West. Underpinning the case studies is the fact that these countries have historically pursued ethical mandates in running private corporations, although corruptive practices were also rampant during different historical periods. The contributions to the book analyse how the theories and models of New Institutionalism and Modes of Exchange fare in their attempts to explain Asian business ethics. As the results indicate, historical methods must accompany any analysis of business ethics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.