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INTRODUCTION The ethical-related issues have been approached since ancient times and have represented the foundation of different religions and life styles. The ethics can be found in all aspects of human activity as the individuals have been preoccupied with the quality of their behavior towards the people around. Even if they do not purposefully intend to improve their relations with the others, people always evaluate their behavior from the point of view of their correctness. Thus, we can consider that the ethics represents a mental process systematically developed to identify and evaluate the differences between the way it is and the way it could be the result of a human action or activity in order to improve the human behaviors in society. The ethics has been an important part of the economic environment in the twentieth century. Within this period, different social groups have manifested in what regards both the public security against some political manipulations, and the consumer awareness, in general, regarding the necessity to take responsibilities by the organizations to find a fair solution for various ethical issues. Nowadays, consumers and pressure groups appear to be increasingly demanding firms to seek out more ethical and ecologically sounder ways of doing business. The media also constantly seems to be keeping the spotlight on corporate abuses and malpractices. And even firms themselves appear to be increasingly recognizing that being ethical (or at the very least being seen to be ethical) may actually be good for business. On the other hand, within this period, the business practice has also outlined the fact that all extraordinary decisions are based both on the financial element as well as on the ethical one. As a result of the conjugated action of these factors, the ethics has become an integrating part of the contemporary business environment. Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2009, p. 5). According to this definition, business ethics covers the hole spectrum of interactions between firms, individuals, society and the state. In other words, business ethics is a complex as business itself. It is not an optional accessory to business life or a mere enthusiasm of the philosophers and moralists; business ethics is how the people conduct their business affairs, from the basest fraud to the highest levels of excellence (Grace and Cohen, 2005, p. 1). Also, some specialists consider that business ethics begins where the law ends. Business ethics is primarily concerned with those issues not covered by the law, or where there is no definite consensus on whether something is right or wrong. Discussion about the ethics of particular business practices may eventually lead to legislation once some kind of consensus is reached, but for most of the issues of interest to business ethics, the law typically does not currently provide us with guidance. (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2009, p. 7). During the past few decades, the globalization process has progressively eroded the relevance of territorial bases for social, economic and political activities, processes and relations. As business became less fixed territorially, corporations increasingly engaged in overseas markets, suddenly finding themselves confronted with new and diverse, sometimes even contradicting ethical demands. Moral values, which were taken for granted in the home market, may get questioned as soon as corporations enter foreign markets. Thus, contemporary countries have a different stability level and development level of the institutions that govern them from a social, political and social level, through their fundamental cultural level and, thus, through their capacity to outline, approach and solve ethical issues. In many countries, this capacity is considerably diminished by poverty, poor education, a limited access to information, corruption and a nonfunctional political environment. Although contemporary nations present important differences from an economic, cultural, political and social point of view, we may observe a great resemblance between the unethical behaviors manifested by the transnational corporations, but also by many companies with international activity, on the markets of these nations, frequently resorting to: corrupting various officials of the host states (in order to obtain governmental facilities), disrespect to the human rights, offering false information regarding the financial status of the company and fraudulent publicity (on the basis of spreading this information),...

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INTRODUCTION The ethical-related issues have been approached since ancient times and...

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