Ethics In A Multicultural Workplace Essay

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Ethics in a multicultural workplace Ethics in the workplace is concerned with the standards that should be applied to issues such as accepting gifts, personal activity on company time, calling in sick and passing blame or taking credit (Rohmetra 2000). Ethics within a corporation most often reflect the values of the home country of the corporation and not the values of the workers (Moon and Wooliams 2000), this can lead to conflict. We must understand the ethics of other cultures in order to succeed (Phua and Kea 2007).

Some major differences include western values centering on universal good compared to Eastern views that look to do the best thing for those closest to us (Moon and Wooliams 2000 and Jackson 2001). Robertson, Crittenden, Brady and Hoffman (2002) investigated four major issues facing organisations in differing situations; these were sex discrimination, bribery, child labour and environmentalism, they looked at Chile, Australia, Ecuador and the United States. Their findings showed that Australians are more tolerant of bribery if they are in a difficult financial decision. Allmon, Chen, Pritchett and Forrest (1997) demonstrated that Australians were more likely to take a sick day without being sick then Taiwanese …show more content…

For example the French have a flexible relationship with time whereas Australians when setting a meeting time expect all parties to arrive at the agreed time. Failure of the French participant to arrive on time may be seen by the Australian meeting organiser as a sign of rudeness or lack of concern for the meeting. If this concern is not voiced an unacknowledged conflict may destroy a business deal before it even begins. Conflict can be avoided by gaining knowledge of the values and behaviours of the other culture and then clearly establishing guidelines to address and areas of

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