5. Conclusion

Economic globalization and technological change are posing new ethical challenges to multinational corporations. As companies operate across diverse cultural and legal frameworks, moral dilemmas arise in labor standards, marketing practices, environment, corruption and human rights. In this chapter, I have reviewed the response of governments, corporations and civil society associations to the new moral dilemmas of globalization. Then, I have introduced the answers developed within the academic field of international business ethics.

Velasquez [70] applied all traditional ethical theories to a dilemma faced by a North American multinational doing business in Jamaica during the 1970s. He found that none of the existing theories provided an adequate answer. Theories were too abstract, presented inconsistent choices or made suggestions that were counterintuitive to moral common sense.

Other, more recent, frameworks have arisen during the 1990s, such as Integrative Social Contracts Theory, a contractarian approach to business ethics. Up to this point, however, no theory can provide a fully satisfactory solution for the dilemmas managers have to face. Much progress is to be done in developing better tools for managerial moral decision making in global business.
