infonet-economy

In the course of globalization the sovereignty of the nation state and its democratically legitimated institutions are eroded. The economy does not develop under territorial regulatory frameworks anymore but rather defines the still residual latitude of the state. Multinational companies find themselves in a new political economic double role that implies ethical conflicts and poses big challenges for multinational companies.
Over the course of the last decades various corporate scandals were caused by unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. The consequences of such scandals included serious damage to the concerned companies. As a reaction to the increasing risk of scandals many companies implemented compliance-based ethics programs.
To what extent such programs can provide ethical and legal business activities varies in practice. It can be assumed that the ethical dimension in particular is missed out because the discourse is dominated by a legal approach to the expanse of ethical considerations. This assumption is tested by analyzing the Business Conduct Guidelines of the company Siemens which is famous for its ethical program and has been used for best practice by other companies.