The Influence of Religion, Ethics, and Culture on International Business

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: Nowadays many firms produce and sell worldwide and employ workers from different nations. How do differences in a country’s religion or ethical system influence their global business operations? How does culture affect them? Is outsourcing production to developing countries ethically defensible? The aim of this paper is to address these questions. Religion comprises shared beliefs, values, and rituals. Values are assumptions regarding what is good, right, or important. Ethical systems involve codes of conduct and values that externally form a group of people’s behaviour. Ethical systems are often based on religion and religion expresses ethical principles. Measured by percentage of world population in 2010, Christianity (31.4%) is the biggest religion, followed by Islam (23.2%). By 2050, however, the Islamic population will be approximately equivalent to the number of Christians. The following section describes how those two religions and their ethics impact on international business.