Honesty, fairness and integrity in international business environment

Some business people suppose that following laws and regulations of their business is enough. They, however, forgot that any ethical business relations should be based on honesty, fairness, and integrity. These are basic virtues to maintain all of business exchanges, especially one between local business people and foreign ones.

Firstly, honesty, fairness, and integrity are universal accepted virtues. No country on this world supports lacking of these virtues. They belong to humankind elements. Lacking of them, government could not run or control the country, business people could not do any transaction because they do not trust their counterparts.

Secondly, these virtues are really important things to establish ethical behavior between local ones and foreign ones. They are from different countries with different cultures, custom, or social etiquette. For example, giving or accepting bribes is sometimes acceptable in Vietnam if government cannot prove that it is based on bad purposes. In other countries, however, this action is not acceptable because they think it is unethical.

Finally, foreign business people sometimes have lots of knowledge, international experience. Some inexperienced Vietnamese business people worry about doing transactions with them. They do not want to be cheated. In another aspect, some unethical foreign businesspersons use ambiguous company rules to treat their workers, or their stakeholders unfairly.

To resolve many dilemmas in business, many activities have to be done.

Firstly, government has to be interested in ethical issues. They should launch clearly, specific laws and regulations. A special commission should be found. Its duties are promulgating ethical business rules, checking, controlling and improving carrying out these rules in real business environment.

Secondly, every organization has to build its own ethical programs. Then they are disseminated, controlled, and evaluated regularly. Dissemination can be done through diversity methods such as training programs, traditional meetings. Rewarding and disciplining are also necessary in every corporation.

General speaking, although basic purpose of any economic activity is earning profits, all business behaviors, especially between local business people and foreign ones, have to be grounded on basic standards. Those standards are honesty, fairness, and integrity.