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East Meets West: Toward a Universal Ethic of Virtue for Global Business

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  • Daryl Koehn

Abstract

Rudyard Kipling famously penned, “East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” His poetic line suggests that Eastern and Western cultures are irreconcilably different and that their members engage in fundamentally incommensurable ethical practices. This paper argues that differing cultures do not necessarily operate by incommensurable moral principles. On the contrary, if we adopt a virtue ethics perspective, we discover that East and West are always meeting because their virtues share a natural basis and structure. This article sketches the rudiments of what a universal virtue ethic might look like. Such an ethic is especially relevant and valuable in this era of global business. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Daryl Koehn, 2013. "East Meets West: Toward a Universal Ethic of Virtue for Global Business," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 703-715, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:116:y:2013:i:4:p:703-715
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1816-x
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    1. Chris Provis, 2010. "Virtuous Decision Making for Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 3-16, February.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Andrew West, 2018. "After Virtue and Accounting Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 21-36, March.
    4. Daryl Koehn, 2020. "How Would Confucian Virtue Ethics for Business Differ from Aristotelian Virtue Ethics?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 205-219, August.
    5. Miguel Alzola & Alicia Hennig & Edward Romar, 2020. "Thematic Symposium Editorial: Virtue Ethics Between East and West," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 177-189, August.
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    11. Vinson, Jeremy M. & Curtis, Mary B. & Conover, Teresa L. & Chui, Lawrence, 2020. "Ethical relativism in accounting: A cross-cultural examination of the influence of culture and risk taking propensity on ethical decision-making," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
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