The Status of Ethics in the Entrepreneurial Process

Abstract

Operationalizing the notion of ethics, along with its applications in the field of entrepreneurship, has made possible the investigation of the influence exerted by the socio-cultural, economic, and legal environment on entrepreneurs’ ethical behavior while they engage in the process of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of socio-cultural, economic, and legal factors on the development of business ethics. On the other hand, we analyze the influence of the development of business ethics on the entrepreneurial process. The population of the study contained 57 Tunisian young entrepreneurs in different sectors. In order to gathering the data required for measuring the study variables a questionnaire was developed. The results of the study showed that some personal traits as well as certain socio-cultural, economic, and legal factors influence their decision during the entrepreneurial process. It has been noticed that there are significant differences between the levels of development in the ethical orientation characterizing each phase of the entrepreneurial process. These differences are related to the entrepreneur’s strategy, the organizational environment, and stakeholders’ strategies