Corporate Business Ethics of Bhutan

Abstract

Using a questionnaire survey, this study focuses on the investigation of corporate business ethics (BE) practices in Bhutan as perceived by managers of ten major local corporations, and also compares Bhutanese BE practices to those of Japan and Korea. The results reveal Bhutanese respondents report the existence of unethical practices in the higher proportion than the Korean or Japanese ones, with unethical practices related to the treatment of employees considered most serious. Overall, Bhutanese managers show a relatively high dissatisfaction with their organization's BE effort and appear more situational and relatively more skeptical than their Japanese and Korean counterparts. Almost half of Bhutanese respondents have experience with an ethical conflict, and a vast majority of them decided not to report unethical practices they have experienced mainly because they thought it would not bring any positive effect. Finally, while a half of respondents think that over the last decade ethical standards have been the same, almost a half thinks they have increased