Extant business ethics literature available for application to international business demonstrates some variety but no comprehensive principles. While the domains of both international business and business ethics are expanding, they are also becoming increasingly divergent. At the same time, the primacy accorded to the multinational enterprise in both fields ignores the socio-cultural and political embeddedness of economic activities, and multiple agencies in international business (individuals, firms, nations, etc.). Some international business theorists have offered the view that international exchange should be (...) the central building block for theories on international business. In this paper, it is argued that international exchange could be the fundamental unit of analysis for international business ethics as well. The potentially unifying features of exchange norms and ethical principles leads the author to develop some core exchange ethics principles that are tested on three recent international business practices. (shrink)

Current conceptualizations of environmental responsibility follow a human-centered approach wherein the natural environment is seen as instrumental to human ends. Environmental responsibility, in this context, emerges primarily as the preservation and sustenance of nature in a manner that would limit waste, enhance the aesthetic and spiritual value of nature, and confer psychological and economic rewards upon individuals and businesses that follow a sustainable course of interaction with nature. In contrast, this paper advances an ecocentric approach to sustainable living that ensures (...) the dialectic between human systems and natural and technical systems by explicitly recognizing nature as central to survival and progress. Environmental responsibility within this approach is viewed to be multilateral and institutional rather than merely as moral responsibility of business or of governments. (shrink)