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International Business: The Importance of Ethics in Business

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International Business
The business world has always relied heavily on contractual agreements while conducting business. These contracts while written in ink, are set in stone. Once your business partner signs his/her name on the dotted line the pact has been sealed and nothing else needs to be said. But what happens when you take away the physical contractual element and everything is agreed upon through one's word?

The world of business ethics is an old discipline in most parts of the world, and in most cases, is applied to the everyday business world. But in the case of China, the country of exaggerated numbers and inflated profit margins, business ethics has yet to be fully assimilated into the Chinese business culture. …show more content…

A case study here in China shows us the importance of rule 14. During the summer of 1998, terrible rainstorms hit the Yangtze river causing it to flood much of the surrounding area. This flooding caused an estimated blablabla in damage and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. In order to help the people who were affected by the flood, CCTV organized a charity drive in which people could pledge money devoted to aiding all those affected. During the broadcast, many companies and corporations pledged RMB to the unfortunate families. The Red Cross asked that everyone who promised to donate money deliver it within a year. Then when a year was up, a huge portion of the promised money was left undelivered. One day, the Greeson Medicine Corporation, and American based company, received news that three of its Chinese business partners were guilty of not delivering on their promise of pledging the money to the flood victims. The intelligence institute which informed them of this recommended that GMC cut all business ties with the three companies. This put GMC in a tough spot. They had two options. One was to ignore that the three companies had done anything wrong and continue to do business with them and share in their profits. However, if it were brought to the public's attention that GMC knew of this dishonest behavior and looked past it with hollow eyes, the public would have a negative image of GMC. The other option was to

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