These are not good times for business ethics in the industrialized nations. In spite of a carefully honed reputation for professionalism and honesty, businesses in the United States, Japan and Europe have seen scandals and problems. In the U.S. it has been the overstatement of profits by and exorbitant remuneration of chief executives. In Japan the concern has been with misidentification of products and payoffs. In Europe the issue has been bribery and understatement of profits. These developments place the acceptance of economic globalization at risk.

As we see the news headlines and the pictures of executives being led away in handcuffs, one might wonder whether lawlessness by business has reached a new zenith. After all, the revelations continue to come and the amounts involved are quite staggering. Is this perhaps the beginning of the unraveling of the industrialized nations, of the chickens of injustice coming home to roost? At the just completed annual meetings of the World Bank in Washington D.C. the demonstrators sure made it sound that way.

One might be tempted to relax by placing the issue into a larger context: Out of the more than 12,000 firms registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the companies accused are a minuscule fraction. The public spotlight has been on the spectacular bankruptcies in the U.S. and the gradual disappearance of major German firms and banks. Their plight has overshadowed the hundreds of thousands of hardworking managers.