College of Administrative Sciences: Public Management Assignment 1

This assignment delves into the significant impact of cultural factors on ethical standards within the realm of public management. The author argues that due to global cultural diversity, universal ethical standards are unattainable, necessitating an understanding of cultural influences on ethical business practices. The assignment explores how organizational culture is shaped by national culture, affecting business operations and decision-making. It highlights the importance of recognizing and adapting to cultural differences for ethical international business conduct. The assignment references various studies and emphasizes the need for organizations to adjust their practices to respect and accommodate different cultural standards, promoting intercultural and ethical communication. It also touches on specific examples, such as the contrast between the emphasis on independence in Great Britain and the teamwork-oriented approach in Sweden, to illustrate how culture influences business ethics and practices.

Running Head: PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Assignment 1..............................................................................................................................2
Ethical Standards affected by Cultural Factors......................................................................2
Reference....................................................................................................................................5

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Assignment 1
Ethical Standards affected by Cultural Factors
The statement that “ethical standards are greatly affected by the cultural factors” is
true. It is because of differences in culture around world, it is not possible to make universal
ethical standard. The idea of ethical business behavior is not universal, rather it depends on
the culture. Hence, for doing international business ethically, it becomes important to be
aware of cultural influence upon the ethical business standards. Ethics is defined as the
philosophical thinking on the morality as well as commitment of individual in his or her
decision-making and moral judgement. It is generally defined with the norms of conduct,
which distinguishes between the behavior that is acceptable or non-acceptable. Further,
ethical standards are the set of principles that are established by organizational founders for
communicating their underlying moral values. These principles promote the values, for
instance kindness, fairness, good behavior and trust. There includes no consistent set of the
standards, which are followed by all the organizations, but each of the company is having
right to develop standards, which are meaningful for their entity (Thanetsunthorn, 2015).
One of the major problems in dealing with the culture is that it is quite difficult for
defining universally. If different cultures of world are compared, one could see that every one
of them comes across the five basic problems of the social life and for each problem, every
culture has developed the answers., which includes identity, gender, truth, values and
hierarchy. Further, organizational culture and its environment are immaterial and material
ways of the behavior of people that are based on the common values. The organizational
culture is influenced by the country’s culture where it exists. Its development course is
specific for each single entity, where major role is played by founder of organization, who

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chooses basic mission, vision and environment for their own organization (Guiso, Sapienza &
Zingales, 2015).
The culture, habits, customs and works in the company differs from the country to
country, from city to city and from province to province. When business of one organization
is done with the other organization, then it is not possible to choose the person with whom
one wants to do the business. It is not only enough to tolerate the differences in the other
company, rather one needs to learn for understanding differences and learning for
understanding differences as well as using them in favor of others. Generally, every
organizations behave according to the culture of country in which it is operating (Ahmed &
Shafiq, 2014).
Culture is not universally accepted idea, because of which it is having various
definitions, however, all states that the culture is referred to the social world. This includes
lifestyle of culture, operations and evaluation ways that are passing from the generation to
generation. The culture helps in encompassing morality. It helps in determining what is
appropriate and right for each group as well as it is also the basis for living in the social
environment. The development of culture is over time and it is continuation of past. One start
learning the behavior according with one’s culture in early years; hence, it affects the
individual at the subconscious level. It is because of this reason characteristic of one’s home
culture is recognized, when one is in different culture’s environment (Svanberg & Öhman,
2016).
Culture is having key impact on doing business with the other company around world.
For instance, it is normal for the Great Britain for putting great deal of significance into
independence and autonomy of organization. They are among the rare countries, who puts
more focus on maximization of current profit and rejecting the long-term investments.

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However, contrary to this, Swedes encourages more teamwork and participation. They strive
for the democratic making of decisions as well as solidarity with the employees that are
reflected in the salaries of employees. Moreover, the system of German is far more typical for
promoting collective responsibility feeling for making the decisions and company’s policy
itself. It is due to their economy of social-market, they constantly remind of significance of
the employees benefits and social security benefits (Yang, 2014).
Hence, the organization needs to learn the culture of other country with whom they
intend to do business, then they should act according with their ethical standards culture. The
business organizations are required to make adjustment of own business practices in such a
way that helps in expressing deference for their customers. The willingness for adopting
another culture’s standards is best way for establishing intercultural and ethical
communication in the business with the other culture’s people (Osafo, 2016).

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Reference
Ahmed, M., & Shafiq, S. (2014). The impact of organizational culture on organizational
performance: A case study on telecom sector. Global journal of management and
business research.
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2015). The value of corporate culture. Journal of
Financial Economics, 117(1), 60-76.
Osafo, E. (2016). Interaction Between National Culture And Ethical Organizational Culture
And Its Impact On Organizational Level Performance: A Case Study Of A Multi–
National Nonprofit Organization In Ghana.
Svanberg, J., & Öhman, P. (2016). Does ethical culture in audit firms support auditor
objectivity?. Accounting in Europe, 13(1), 65-79.
Thanetsunthorn, N. (2015). The impact of national culture on corporate social responsibility:
evidence from cross-regional comparison. Asian Journal of Business Ethics, 4(1), 35-
56.
Yang, C. (2014). Does ethical leadership lead to happy workers? A study on the impact of
ethical leadership, subjective well-being, and life happiness in the Chinese
culture. Journal of business ethics, 123(3), 513-525.