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The purpose of this paper is to study ethics, values and cross-cultural differences in China, Mexico or the United States. Three distinct and unique nations, the USA, Mexico and China, have different political structures, historical backgrounds and economical systems. While each of these nations can be considered an integral part to the world economy, each nation has their own distinct ethics, values and culture which serve as the backbone of the particular region. To be successful in international business, knowledgeable as an expatriate and culturally or ethically aware of key nations in the global market, individuals need to have researched information pertaining to the ethics, cultures and values of the USA, Mexico or China to blend in and succeed with the foreign cultural environment.

This research paper will focus extensively on the impact values, ethics and cultural differences (based majorly and solely on the Rokeach Values Survey, Forsyth Studies and Hofsteade’s Model) have on the societies of the USA, Mexico or China. A review of the empirical studies will demonstrate the importance values, ethics and culture have on individual life or business environment for the USA, Mexico or China.

Culture can be a factor which heavily influences a region or nation’s ethics and values.

When discussing culture, there are many factors such as values, religion, societal norms, customs, beliefs or deeply rooted faiths which can impact a nation’s overall collective culture. As a result, cross-cultural differences among a variety of nations, countries, regions or sub-regions may vary when compared with one another. Through more empirical investigation, research or study of a nation’s cultural values may there be a more profound, detailed and legitimate basis for assessing a nation’s ethical constructs.

Understanding the differences of ethics, values and culture of the USA, China or Mexico can impact an individual’s experience if serving as an expatriate at the particular location. Each nation has its own distinct and unique social, business and cultural environment. To successfully accomplish international business or to operate a multinational corporation in a global market, individuals need to have a prior understanding of varying cultures, ethical standards or values in a particular region.

This research paper will present and deliver pertinent information to individuals interested in serving as an expatriate in the USA, China or Mexico. Individuals can also read this paper to understand, comprehend or consume more general knowledge of the ethics, values and culture of the researched locations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of ethical ideological orientation (moral idealism and moral relativism), work sector and types of professional membership on the ethical decision-making (EDM) process of professional accountants in Nigeria.

The study obtained primary data from 329 professional accountants with the aid of a structured questionnaire containing four scenarios of ethical dilemmas. The data were analysed using descriptive statistical analysis, independent sample t-test, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression techniques.

The results revealed both idealistic and relativistic moral orientation among the accountants surveyed with a higher mean score (>4.0) recorded for moral idealism. Moral idealism was found to have a positive influence, while moral relativism a negative influence on the three stages (ethical recognition, ethical judgement and ethical intention) of EDM examined. Professional accountants with idealistic orientation showed a higher disposition towards making ethical decisions in situations involving ethical dilemmas than those tending towards relativistic orientation. The results also revealed that work sector (private or public) and types of professional membership play significant roles in predicting the EDM process of professional accountants in Nigeria.

The study provides empirical evidence that could be used to support educational and legislative efforts in enhancing the moral ideological orientation of professional accountants, which will, in turn, enhance their EDM processes. The findings could be used to enhance ethics instructions and training of current and prospective professional accountants in educational settings, especially in countries such as Nigeria where there is yet to be a discrete ethics course in the curriculum for accounting undergraduate degree programmes. Professional accounting bodies in Nigeria and other developing countries could use the evidence in this study to strengthen the ethics code for professional accountants.

The study is unique in focussing on professional accountants in developing countries using Nigeria to represent developing countries with high corruption profile and weak institutions and governments and, as such, it contributes to the scarce research output on accounting ethics in developing countries.

When developing and justifying courses of study in business ethics the designer will be interested in setting benchmarks reflecting his/her understanding or appreciation of the moral views of participating members. Such considerations are often complicated by the fact, relevant in many Australian institutions of higher learning, that most of the cohorts contain overseas students from a variety of Asian countries. If insights into the ethical perceptions of students with differing ethnic origins could be measured in some objective fashion, then curriculum planners might take such matters into account when developing strategies for courses involving business ethics. This paper reports the findings of a questionnaire survey that examined the ethical perceptions of 407 second and third year students completing business courses at two Western Australian universities. Two country groupings, Australian and Malaysian students, were identified and their responses examined to ascertain whether relevant demographic factors relating to age and gender could be used to explain the strong differences in perceptions which were noted with respect to issues involving questionable practices involving consumers. Demographic factors failed to explain observed differences and a subsequent examination of the underlying constructs, using factor and cluster analyses, resulted in the realisation that the two groups demonstrated significantly variant patterns of ethical predisposition.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of ethical ideologies on ethical judgments of future Malaysian accountants in general situations and based on the legality of the situations. The examination covers the relationships of both the specific ethical dimension (i.e. idealism and relativism) and the specific categories of ideology (i.e. absolutist and subjectivist) on ethical judgments.

Using a questionnaire survey that comprises Ethical Position Questionnaire and ethical dilemma vignettes, 396 usable responses were received. In achieving the objectives, multivariate analysis of variance, correlations and univariate analysis of variance were performed.

The study discovered a significant impact of ethical ideology on judgments regardless of the legality of the cases. In addition, the study found a significant positive and negative impact of idealism and relativism, respectively, on ethical judgment. Moreover, the study reported that absolutists are stricter whilst situationists are more lenient in making ethical judgments compared to other ideologies.

The present study investigated the effect of ethical ideologies on ethical judgment, in general, as well as the effect on ethical judgment based on the legality of the ethical dilemma. This study also considered the effect of the two dimensions of ethical ideology – idealism and relativism – on ethical judgment and captured the four categories of ideology based on the taxonomy of ethical ideologies.

Auditors' ethical orientation and reasoning influence their professional and ethical decisions, thus impacting users of financial statements. This study examines gender and career level influences on ethical orientation and reasoning and documents systematic differences across the accounting firm. Seniors were most likely to adopt the ethical views of relativism and situation ethics. Male managers and partners were conventional ethical reasoners who adopted society's view of ethical problems, with partners scoring highest on Stage 6 principled reasoning. Female managers were largely Stage 5 principled reasoners. The results emphasize the importance of developing richer descriptions of auditors' ethics before recommending changes in the profession.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of length of service and ethical ideologies on cognitive moral development (CMD) and ethical behavioral intentions among public sector tax auditors in Brazil.

The research data were collected via survey questionnaires from a sample of 625 auditors who work for the Brazilian tax authority. Participants voluntarily complete an online instrument which included three scenarios with context-specific moral dilemmas, questions about the specific scenarios and an ethics position questionnaire. Multinomial logistic and ordinary least squares regressions were used to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that public sector tax auditors with shorter length of service are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development; relativistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with more lenient ethical behavioral intention; idealistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with stricter ethical behavioral intention; public sector auditors classified as absolutists are stricter in their ethical behavioral intentions; and public sector auditors classified as absolutists with length of service between 5 and 15 years are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development when compared to public sector tax auditors with longer length of service.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the first studies that attempt to understand the effects of length of service and ethical ideology on CMD and ethical behavioral intention among public sector auditors. Additionally, it examines these issues in the context of Latin America.

It is argued that ethical ideology espoused by an individual provides the framework within which individuals contemplate the issues and determine the right way to behave. This paper aims to report the findings of a study designed to examine the ethical orientations of managers.

This study was conducted on a sample of 175 managers and was drawn from 12 large manufacturing organizations in the state of Punjab, India, using Forsyth's ethics position questionnaire.

It was found that the large majority of managers were situationists and only a small percentage were absolutists.

The sample in this study is restricted to large manufacturing enterprises only and reports espoused values only.

An understanding of the value orientations of managers is valuable for business representatives from other cultural contexts when working with their Indian counterparts. It is also a useful input in establishing organisational strategies for management development and training for expatriate assignments and leadership roles.

The author is of the belief that, at the present time, this is the largest study of personal ethical orientations of practising managers in the manufacturing sector in Punjab, India. It adds to the work done by various researchers into ethical beliefs and values of managers in various cultural contexts.

Rest posited that to behave morally, an individual must have performed at least four basic psychological processes: moral sensitivity; moral judgment; moral motivation; and moral character. Though much ethics research in accounting has been focused on component two, ethical judgment, less research has been undertaken on the other three components. The purpose of this study is to focus on component one, ethical sensitivity, of Rest's four‐component model.

A sample of 156 accounting undergraduates was employed to investigate the ethical sensitivity of accounting students and the effects of their ethical reasoning and personal factors on their ethical sensitivity.

Results of this study show that accounting students vary in their ability to detect the presence of ethical issues in a professional scenario. There is no significant relationship between accounting students' ethical sensitivity and their ethical reasoning (P‐score). Accounting students characterized as “internals” are more likely to show an ability to recognize ethical issues than those characterized as “externals.” The results also indicate that an accounting ethics intervention may have positive effect on accounting students' ethical sensitivity development. Hence, an individual who possesses the ability to determine what is ethically right or wrong (high ethical reasoning) may fail to behave ethically due to a deficiency in identifying ethical issues (low ethical sensitivity) in a situation.

Whilst much research has concentrated on ethical reasoning and ethics education to enhance the ethical conduct of accountants, it is important that the profession and researchers also direct their attention and efforts to cultivating the ethical sensitivity of accountants. The findings of this study provide additional evidence to support Rest's theory of a more comprehensive cognitive model of ethical decision‐making and suggest a more balanced research effort in evaluating the ethical development of individuals.

This article aims to investigate the differences and similarities among cross-cultural, values and ethics between the USA and Asian countries. This article analyzes the degree of cultural distance between USA and Asian countries and the impact it has in companies. It examines the comparison between the USA and China’s value system. It also assesses how idealism and relativism impact individual ethical decision-making. In addition, this article examines the impact that globalization, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade have in the Chinese culture and other countries.

The data for this research paper were collected from the following models: Ethics Position Questionnaire of Forsyth, Rokeach Values Survey, Hofstede model, GLOBE model and Wilcoxon test. The main sources used for this research were the Journal of Technology Management in China and the EBSCO database.

The research found that Western cultures tend to be more individualistic, while Asian countries tend to be very collective. This study also found that the type of value system that each culture holds depends on the type of government. This research also found that researchers have discovered that American managers are more loyal to their ethical beliefs, rather than to their superior’s or company’s ethical beliefs. While eastern Asian cultures focus more on the importance of acting in the best interests of the company’s superior. The study also found that it is extremely important for foreigners to build a relationship with Chinese business professionals before they do business negotiations. In addition, the study found that globalization, FDI and trade do make a significant cultural difference in some cultural dimensions.

It contributes to the literature by analyzing the different measurements in value, ethics and cultural differentiation. This research wants to demonstrate the importance of cultural differences, ethics and values across different countries and cultures. It also provides factual evidence that it’s important to understand these differences to be a successful global manager. In addition, it contributes to this literature by analyzing the effect that globalization, FDI and trade have in national cultures.