Taking Your Codes to China

Abstract

The proliferation of codes of conduct and ethical standards among American and European companies has been dramatic over the past 20 years. It is rare today to find a large publicly held company in the West that does not have some type of ethics code and is not involved in the growing dialogue over global standards of conduct. But one of the most difficult challenges facing these companies is how to apply these codes and these ethical standards to the companies’ operations in developing countries, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Among these cases, perhaps the most urgent challenge is for each company to decide how to adapt and apply its code to operations in China. Companies such as Rio Tinto, Google, and Foxconn are recent case studies in ethical conflicts arising from doing business in China. With pressures for human rights, environmental sensitivity, and fighting corruption rising in their domestic homelands and in global commerce, nothing is more critical to these companies’ reputation and success than learning how to “take their code to China.”