HBR's 10 Must Reads for New Managers Collection

Values in Tension

Ethics Away from Home. by Thomas Donaldson

WHEN WE LEAVE HOME and cross our nation’s boundaries, moral clarity often blurs. Without a backdrop of shared attitudes, and without familiar laws and judicial procedures that define standards of ethical conduct, certainty is elusive. Should a company invest in a foreign country where civil and political rights are violated? Should a company go along with a host country’s discriminatory employment practices? If companies in developed countries shift facilities to developing nations that lack strict environmental and health regulations, or if those companies choose to fill management and other top-level positions in a host nation with people from the home country, whose standards should ...