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The Impact of National Culture on Business Ethics: A Study of Egypt and The U.S
Rafik I. Beekun,
University of Nevada
Rania Hamdy, Cairo University
Hassan Hassabelnaby, The Uinversity of Toledo
ABSTRACT. In this comparative survey of 191 Egyptian and 92 US executives, we explore the relationship between national culture and ethical decision-making within the context of business. Using Reidenbach and Robin’s (1988) multi-criteria ethics instrument, we examine how differences on two of Hofstede’s national culture dimensions, individualism/collectivism and power distance, are related to the manner in which business practitioners make ethical decisions. Egypt and the U.S. provided an interesting comparison because of the extreme differences in their economies and related business development. Our results indicate that respondents from the U.S, low in power distance and individualistic, were likely to view the decision-making outcome in our ethics scenarios as more unethical than the more collectivistic and high power distance Egyptians.
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