Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1999

Cultural relativism in this study means that business executives from different countries have different ethical convictions, while universalism refers to the tendency in executives to observe th e same moral principles regardless of whe re their business operations take place. The development of contextualized hypernorms means that while business executives may consistently uphold the same moral principles, they w i ll also take environmental factors into consideration when evaluating how to react to an ethical issue. To investigate which perspective best describe s business executives' attitude towards cross-border corruption, one must assess the impact of their c u l t u r al bac kg r ound, the nature of the bribe, the business environment, and the inter-relationships between these three variables. If cultural backgroun d is found to have an obvious influence on cross-border corruption, cultural relativis m prevails: business executives w i th different cultural backgrounds do go by different cultural norms. For example, corruption is frowned upon in Hong Kong and Singapore but in many southeast Asian countries, it is seen as a normal way of getting things done. If business executives are found to behave very similarl y under different business environments, universalism prevails . For example, employees of American companies may remain uncorrupt no matter whether they are operating in the US or in other business environments. If the interactive relationship between the nature of the bribe and the business environment is found to have a significant impact on cross-border corruption, contextualized hypernorms prevail because the executives tend to react t o each bribery proposal differentl y in the context of the specific business environments. For example, some transnational European companies train their employees t o follow a strict code of behaviou r regarding bribery when operating in developed countries, but to relax their adherence wh en operating in relatively less developed regions. Research Results The subjects i n Prof. Lee's study were three groups of 60 business executives each from mainland China, Hong Kong, and the US respectively. Prof. Lee designed an in-basket questionnaire w i t h simulated business situations to solicit managerial decisions from the respondents. Would they resort to bribery to gain an edge or a favour under such and such circumstances? The results of the s u r v ey c l ea r ly s how that the — respondents' cultural background, the nature of the bribe, and the interactive effect of the nature of the bribe an d the business environment have a significant effect on the respondents' behaviour. Business environment alone, however, has negligible impact. C h i n e sU n i v e r s i t yB u l l e t i n A u t u m n • W i n t e r 1999 4 4