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Making Ethical Judgements: A Cross-Cultural Management Study

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Abstract

This article reports the results of a cross-cultural empirical study across seven countries which investigates the differences in the way managers structure their ethical judgements regarding the loyalty of a corporation to its employees, the loyalty of employees to the corporation, and the loyalty of employees towards their co-workers. Managers' ethical judgements from the East Asian ‘tiger’ countries of Japan, Korea and Hong Kong are compared with those from the ‘Anglo’ countries of the United States and Australia, and with those from the ‘transitional’ countries of Asiatic Russia and Poland. An adapted version of the well documented Reidenbach-Robin instrument is used, and its cross-cultural application investigated. As hypothesized, cross-cultural differences were indicated for both the structure and content of managers' ethical judgements, which have important implications for the way organizations are effectively managed both nationally, regionally and internationally. Weaknesses in the a priori constructs of the research instrument were also indicated, and recommendations made for future development of methodology in this area.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Cross Cultural Management Research, EAP European School of Management, 12 Merton Street, Oxford, OX14JH, England

    Terence Jackson

  2. EAP European School of Management, UK

    Cindy David

  3. Western Michigan University, USA

    Satish Deshpande

  4. The Flinders University of South Australia, Australia

    Janice Jones

  5. University of Alaska -Fairbanks, USA

    Jacob Joseph

  6. Lingnan College, Hong Kong

    K. F. Lau

  7. Babson College, USA

    Ken Matsuno

  8. Reitaku University, Japan

    Chiaki Nakano & Iwao Taka

  9. Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea

    Hun-Joon Park

  10. University of Lodz, Poland

    Joanna Piorunowska-Kokoszko

  11. Kobe University, Japan

    Hideki Yoshihara

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  1. Terence Jackson
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  2. Cindy David
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  3. Satish Deshpande
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  4. Janice Jones
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  5. Jacob Joseph
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  6. K. F. Lau
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  7. Ken Matsuno
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  8. Chiaki Nakano
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  9. Hun-Joon Park
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  10. Joanna Piorunowska-Kokoszko
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  11. Iwao Taka
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  12. Hideki Yoshihara
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Jackson, T., David, C., Deshpande, S. et al. Making Ethical Judgements: A Cross-Cultural Management Study. Asia Pacific Journal of Management 17, 443–472 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015838432317

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