Crisis of National Ethical Models – Implications on Learning Business Ethics in Romanian Universities

Abstract

According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, computed by Transparency International for 2011, Romania is on the 75-th place from 183 analyzed countries, with a score of 3.6 from 10 (in European Union, it is on the 25-th place from 27 states, being surpassed by Bulgaria and Greece). On the same basis, Global Corruption Barometer offers other worrying data for 2010: business environment/private sector is perceived as a corrupt one (a score of 3.6 from 5); only 2% of the respondents trust the business environment/private sector. In these conditions, present cannot offer many ethical models, especially from business. Worse, neither tradition seems more generous, two examples being relevant in supporting this assertion: in Romania, outlaw (in fact, a form of theft) was excessively overrated as a myth; in popular culture, there can be found elements being expression of some collective character flaws (see the Romanian proverb “Uncaught thief honest merchant.”). On this background, the following questions arise: How can we teach business ethics to students living in such a society? How can we convince students of the relevance/utility of business ethics issues, when around them, things happen totally different?Trying to answer these questions, present article aims to investigate how anti-models can be used to build, over time, some valid models.