Ethical Considerations in Global Multi-Stakeholder Work Contexts

Abstract

Economic integration and globalization has brought increasing ethical complexity into business anthropology as more anthropologists work in or research multinational enterprises that cross multiple boundaries. Ethical challenges arise from the predominant neoliberal viewpoint in these enterprises, the embeddedness of ethics in culture, and from intercultural nature of multi-stakeholder environments. Using an example of one research project in an MNE, this article illustrates the ethical challenges of the MNE work context and how these challenges can be resolved and discusses current ethical dilemmas and the future implications for the growth and practice of business and organizational anthropology.