earticle

영어

The purposes of this study are (1) to analyze the levels of the business ethics in Korea, (2) to find the factors affecting the ethical levels of businesses and the extents of their influences, (3) to study the relationship between the the ethical levels of businesses and business performances, and (4) to delive implications for the improvement of business performances and competitiveness. The first step toward the goal is to conduct an extensive reference search. Based upon the literature review, a model for empirical test is developed. The results indicate that (1) the Korean businesses tend to focus their attentions on internal aspects and management perfection rather than on the external ones, (2) passives business ethics tends to be emphasized compared to active ethics, (3) overall the ethical levels of the businesses are relatively high, (4) the ethical levels of the businesses are affected by the individual, organizational and social factors. and (5) higher ethical levels result in better business performances. Therefore, the following recommendations are desirable to enhance business performances through the improvement of ethical levels : (1) to improve the ethical consciousness of top management and employees, (2) to establish the ethical corporate culture by formulating a code of business ethics, (3) to prepare a better evaluation system for members in the organization. and (4) to improve employee welfares. Several limitations are to be addressed as all the cases of other studies. Since references associated with a causal relationship between the ethical levels of businesses and business performances are not sufficient, the empirical model does not have an extensive list of variables, and thus only limited factors such as social faith in businesses and social relationships were employed. Instead of measuring ethical levels of businesses in terms of the consciousness of the members, behavioral terms may be better. Consiquently, further studies seem to be necessary to take into account more extensive factors in the model, to analyze the transition of the outcomes over time, and to study the business ethics based on behavioral terms.