Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Abstract
Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
Fostering Business Ethics in Pursuit of Organizational Integrity in a globalized business
environment: Dilemmas for South African Business Organizations
Abel J. Diale: dialeaj@tut.ac.za
Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa
A globalized business environment presents the business organizations with opportunities and challenges. These can
be seen from the daily media exposures of wrongdoing in areas of unethical practices (e.g. cartel behavior among
dominant players in specific industries) and illegal practices (e.g. insider trading, price fixing and eaves dropping).
All these occur while these organizations have well-articulated ethics codes / codes of conduct and relevant
legislation governing business practices. The paper intends to interrogate a central feature of even when
organizations have well-articulated codes of ethics / conduct that guide their business dealings, they still find
themselves on the wrong side of the law and bringing their ethical standing in question. To address this
predicament, the study selected two organizations, which in their respective markets, have a fair share and
considerable influence. The cases referred to were presented before the Competitions Tribunal and the Supreme
Courts of South Africa respectively between the years 2006 - 2010. These cases will be presented and analyzed, with
the view of drawing recommendations for considerations by managers of corporations.
Introduction
In the era of modern technological revolution and the expanding global village, organizations and their
leaders have come under increasing pressure to demonstrate their moral and ethical pedigree. Ghillyer
(2008) and KLM Inc (2007) observed that, until recently, few organizations seriously considered ethics to
be a legitimate topic for enterprise planning and strategic thinking. This practice, the authors contend,
brought the strongest news of the last decade linked to growing trend of unethical business behaviour.
This aspect is further presented by (Ogbuechi, Folami & Kwesiba, 2007) when asserting that, as the
global awareness of ethical and corporate responsibility issues is continually increasing the conduct of
business transactions efficiently and effectively in a mere technocratic sense is no longer sufficient to
preserve the acceptability of managers in a globalized marketplace. Further, while there is yet no
universal morality standard, ethical and corporate integrity considerations must become an integral of the
decision-making process. This was not considered an integral part of the planning and implementation
process.
The paper will look into the possible factors that make business organizations to flout their own
organizational ethics with the hope of gaining competitive advantage in the market. The results presented
were obtained using a qualitative study, utilizing a comparative case study approach. A comparative
analysis will be made based on two (2) business organizations in South African the periods 2006 – 2010.
The paper will provide some overview of ethics, business ethics, and ethical principles of Corporate
Governance as per the King III Report (2009) as well aspects that constitute Organizational Integrity. This
will be followed by the analysis of the cases selected. The results will be presented and concluding
remarks will be made for managerial consideration.
Definitions: Ethics, Business Ethics, Corporate Governance
The view expressed by Fourie (2010) is that ethics relate to moral principles and rules of conduct and they
call upon us to evaluate personal interests against the good of the company or employees and ultimately,
527