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The purpose of this paper is to trace a history of American codes of business ethics as they evolved from religious bases to legalistic bases to an international emphasis.

The paper describes the evolution of business codes of ethics over the twentieth century in relation to the development of social issues.

It is found that ethical codes are influenced by the prevailing ideology of the time regarding the social responsibility of business. The earlier part of the twentieth century emphasized religious values governing the treatment of customers and competitors and the responsibility of businesses for the well‐being of their employees by directing their private as well as business conduct. The latter part of the twentieth century stressed legal compliance as government regulation sought to control business behaviors that were harmful to society and to the environment. Entering into the twenty‐first century, we are seeing an increase in international emphases in codes of ethics. We discuss these trends in terms of evolving approaches to corporate social responsibility.

Organizations writing (and rewriting) codes of ethics should move beyond reactive legal compliance and proactively examine values associated with their stakeholder relationships as well as relationships to corporate social responsibility issues.

While there have been histories of medical and legal codes of ethics, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first exploration of a history of American business codes of ethics. The paper examines the development of codes of ethics in the context of business needs and social values prominent during those times.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether undergraduate and graduate business students in China and the USA share similar attitudes with regard to business ethics.

Using an instrument derived from Becker and Fritzsche, this study measured attitudes toward eight business ethics value statements. In addition, the survey asked respondents to report the degree to which they believed that reports of corporate irresponsibility had influenced their responses to the survey. Tests of significance were used to determine significant differences.

Despite advances in communication, the influence of foreign firms now operating in China, and the return to China of nationals who were educated in the USA, of eight business ethics value statements examined, significant differences between the Chinese and US respondents were found in all but one case.

The data were drawn from the southern USA and from eastern China. Future researchers may wish to replicate the study using samples from diverse geographical areas in each country. This study could also be replicated to assess similarities and differences between management and student samples.

The results of this study point out significant differences between Chinese and US evaluations of the business ethics value statements examined. Given a history of years with little interaction between these two nations and the cultural distance between China and the USA, studies such as this provide useful information in the process of helping the people of these two nations better understand one another. The findings should prove especially useful to those concerned with the increasingly important issue of ethics in business operations.

We present a peer-to-peer teaching approach designed to prepare introductory accounting students to address ethical challenges they will face in the workplace. We describe the motivation, processes, and resources used, introduce an effectiveness measure and discuss refinements so that other universities may adopt the innovation.

Upper division Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) accounting honor society members, with faculty guidance, create and deliver workshops in the 200-level introductory accounting sequence using the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. GVV provides tools to move from recognition to action when confronted with a values conflict. The BAP members had completed the GVV exercises and casework in their upper division accounting courses. Now as peer coaches, they guide sophomore-level business students through the GVV curriculum to prepare them to act on their values when challenged.

Post-training perceptions express consistent beliefs that the introductory accounting students’ skills and abilities had improved with the training. Additionally, introductory accounting students’ descriptions of how they would address values conflicts based on what they learned in the training reflects development of personalized specific approaches.

GVV provides students with an action-based ethics toolkit to build upon as they move forward academically and professionally. The peer-to-peer innovation builds stronger mentor and mentee ties and introduces the business program’s ethical culture to sophomore-level business students.

The innovation won the 2014 Beta Alpha Psi Ethics Award sponsored by Grant Thornton and reflects the first use of a peer-to-peer approach with GVV in a university setting.

This chapter documents business ethics and value orientation of the Igbo business model of southeastern Nigeria. The case study method was employed with two purposively selected Igbo enterprises based in Lagos, Nigeria, to provide insights into the model. The chapter reveals that business ethics and values constitute key components of indigenous business success and survival. The identified business ethics and values include diligence, trust, prudence, unity, honesty, integrity, cordial relationships with customers and suppliers, perseverance and patience. Furthermore, the Igbo apprenticeship system facilitates the transfer of business knowledge, practices and principles from one generation to another. Notably, one of the cases focuses on a female-owned enterprise, emphasizing that the issues raised are applicable to both genders. The chapter concludes with recommendations for business actors in Africa.

To study the values espoused by top MNEs operating in Colombia, through their vision and mission statements, in order to interpret their ethical orientation and to examine their concern toward diverse stakeholders.

Content analysis – an analytical framework was crafted from the literature review, while allowing room for emergent phenomena. Thus a combination of deduction and induction was enacted.

Most values are either teleologically oriented or grounded in deontological values, with a significant amount of values that could be related to a virtue ethics. Regarding stakeholders, narrow definitions tend to prevail.

The comparability of the vision and mission statements could be affected because sometimes they are offered at the national level and others at corporate level.

By offering a critical regard at the values that are publicly espoused by some of the most influential companies in Colombia, we enhance the comprehension of the prevailing ethical environment and the compatibility with the principles of the Global Compact.

We have studied key actors in a growing emerging market, which could advance Global Compact principles. Besides we have crafted a pedagogic and systemic prism through which values can be taught and thought. Thus, the methodological and theoretical framework facilitates subsequent empirical research, both in comparative and longitudinal ways.

The presence and use of the informal and formal measures of business ethics implementation may be crucial and should therefore be known to managers/owners. Based on the case study research, this paper aims to suggest that enterprise awareness of importance of business ethics implementation can be of essential meaning for its long‐term existence, success, growth, and development. The purpose of this paper is to discover the presence and use of the informal and formal measures of business ethics implementation and to identify their importance for active measure care by the enterprises.

In this paper, qualitative research is applied. The research cognitions on informal and formal measures of business ethics implementation are discussed in application of the dialectical systems theory.

The paper finds that on one side the enterprises' key stakeholders (owners and managers) are aware of the importance of their ethical behaviour as well as of impact of their ethical behaviour to the enterprises' behaviour. The research results also show that enterprises' key stake holders are conscious of the impact of enterprises' ethical behaviour to the enterprises' long term existence, growth, and development. On the other hand, the research findings show that such informal awareness is usually not formalized, which can be argued as a reason for enterprises' unethical behaviour.

This paper gives us some insights as to the state of informal and formal measures of business ethics implementation in Slovenian enterprises. In a frame of practical implications, a further research should be done to show which formal measures of such ethics implementation should be used to stimulate the enterprises' innovative behaviour in assurance of enterprise effectiveness, efficiency, and social responsibility in order to achieve and maintain enterprise's long term existence, growth, and development.

The available literature does not provide for a similar research of linkage between the formal and informal measures of business ethics implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a single code of ethics that could be used regardless of the venue or specialty of the marketing professional. The paper first provides a literature review of research in the areas of ethics pertaining to marketing professionals. Then a review of a wide variety of codes of business ethics, marketing ethics, model codes, and professional ethics produces the idea that, while there are some differences in how the codal principles are presented, there are sufficient similarities in the codes' principles of professional conduct to merit the consideration of a single code of marketing ethics – one that can be used regardless of the venue or specialty of the marketing professional.

The paper introduces a broad literature review followed by the development of a transcendent code of ethics for all marketers.

Using the above as well as: historically and more broadly known theories of ethics, and currently‐used codes of professional marketing ethics, including those from the American Marketing Association (AMA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), and the Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI), the authors make an attempt to determine the most prominent, efficacious principles of ethics and to shape a single code of professional conduct for marketing students, educators and practitioners – regardless of their area of specialty.

The proposed code is subject to debate and will likely not be the model eventually used. The authors hope that the code proposed will stimulate further research, discussion and formulation.

A single code of ethics that could be utilized by anyone confronted with an ethical marketing issue would be useful in easing the difficulties associated with challenging ethical dilemmas in marketing.

Drawing on traditional frames of ethics and combining those principles with principles found in the marketing ethics literature, the authors generate a single code of ethics that not only marketers can use, but that others in society can also identify with and feel confidence in – thus alleviating concerns of mistrust or misunderstanding between those marketing products and services and the stakeholders in the society in which those products and services are being marketed.

No transcendent code of marketing ethics currently exists. The three most prominent are unique to their fields – each leaving out portions necessary to be transcendent. Thus, the proposed code is original and has the practical social implication values noted above.

The continued rise of the multinational and debate as to what constitutes global business values is predicated on the UN Declaration and Global Business Compact. This research suggests both documents explicitly exclude the existence of a foundational ethereal power creating morals thereby nullifying two thirds of the general population’s belief system. The authors argue against humanism as a global value beginning and suggest theism as a better origin and use the scientific method to introduce mathematical axioms supporting theism and complimenting humanism. Ontologically, the theist becomes a stronger base for the scientific inquiry into morals, values and business ethics. A comparison of major religious morals revealed eight factors: assurance; candor, fairness and honesty; character, integrity, truthfulness and exacting in truth; charity and compassion; environment; perseverance and tolerance; sacrifice; and seriousness. The research suggests that the UN documents do not adequately reflect these morals suggesting a change for businesses especially in Islamic regions.

A comprehensive review of religious materials emphasizing morals rather than customs, eternal entity description or negative behaviors yielded 1,243 morals and associated synonyms via six religions (Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism) representing 4.5 billion people. All positive morals were cross-referenced and only common items across all six religions were included. With the 29 common morals, the authors completed a word meaning search and did a second comparison that yielded 8 moral factors or constructs.

Eight moral factors were found to be common in all major religions (assurance, fairness/honesty, character/integrity, charity/compassion, environment, tolerance, sacrifice and seriousness). By using the scientific method (Axioms), the authors argue that theism is a better beginning to researching morals and values within business and marketing.

Multinationals should be made aware of the disconnect between the underlying problems of the Global Business Compacts’ values and the global morals identified. The results suggest adopting a codification system based on the pertinent morals as related to economic theories: capitalism, socialism and theism. The use of theism as a base to business and marketing ethics includes billions of customers and employees and their belief systems that should increase the validity and reliability of actions associated with corporate social responsibility, the environment and best practices.

The UN Declaration and subsequent Global Business Compact are argued to be flawed by its exclusion of religious morals and the historical period in which it was created. By using the scientific method and creating two axioms, the base to all business and marketing ethics must shift to the common moral factors identified.

Creativity is a critical skill across disciplines and contexts, and it is an important trait for humans to survive and thrive, personally and collectively. The fast-paced culture of business innovation has sought to promote and reward creativity as a coveted thinking skill. Creativity in and of itself, however, is a value-neutral construct, because novel and effective ideas may also have negative consequences. This darker aspect of creativity has come to the forefront in many recent cases, particularly in contexts involving digital and networking technologies, where the rapid pace of technological change does not encourage the kind of deliberative thinking necessary for nuanced and ethical business decisions. The authors consider why education is essential for expanding the ethical capacity of creative agency in business, describing the need to bring creativity and ethics together in educational opportunities and cultural values. The authors explore the idea of ‘wise creativity’ and the need to infuse more human-centred learning from the arts and humanities into business fields. Further, the authors suggest better practices for creative business education, such as: infusing real-world ethics learning into business education and professional development; infusing the liberal arts curriculum in business; offering opportunities for arts-based approaches in business learning; and instilling genuine mindfulness training in business education environments. The authors’ focus is on a shift away from a culture that values creativity purely as an instrumental approach for greater profitability, and towards one that values wise and humanizing creativity for good business practices that consider societal and individual wellbeing.