News Releases

UWI Business School discusses ethics in the workplace

For Release Upon Receipt - July 22, 2008

St. Augustine


The University of the West Indies (UWI), Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business (GSB) recently held an Ideas Forum which highlighted the importance of culture and their effects on ethics and ethical management within the business place. Participants representing a wide cross-section of interests from the public and private sectors turned up for the discussion on “Cross Cultural Differences in Ethical Management: How Ethically Suspect Behaviours Differ across Societies”.

Dr. Rolph Balgobin, Director of the Lok Jack GSB, opened the proceedings by commenting on recent changes in Caribbean business and the effects of industrialisation on the local economy. He went on to discuss how business practices and ethics vary from country to country.

Feature presenter, Dr. Praveen Parboteeah, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and multi-national strategic management expert, focused his presentation on managerial ethics in today’s business world.

Parboteeah’s findings were based on an investigation of the effects of social institutions and national culture on managers’ willingness to justify ethically suspect behaviours. His data set spanned 28 nations and included 3,450 managers. His findings indicated that industrialisation has resulted in economic roles that dominate the societal structure, thus weakening social norms and most interesting of all, the more educated the individual, the greater the likelihood for that person to embrace benevolent values.

Dr. Parboteeah also shared reflections on the current state of global ethics, with specific reference to the link between religion and ethics. He considered the impact of increasing diversity in the workplace on business ethics and the link between environmental sustainability and ethics.

For more information please contact the Arthur Lok Jack GSB Communications Unit at 662-9894/5 ext 317.

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  • The Arthur Lok Jack GSB Communications Unit

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