Asia is bursting with entrepreneurial energy – and bribery, backdoor deals and corporate skulduggery, if the news headlines are to be believed.

    For example, China's food safety chief was recently executed for taking payoffs, while the Communist party leader in Shanghai has been jailed for stealing pension funds. The idea that powerful people can cut legal corners is widespread.

    “Reciprocity is a source of great cultural strength in many Asian societies. It binds us together and is a great comfort,” said Piman Limpaphayom, who runs the MBA programme at Sasin Business School in Bangkok. 

    “But where do you draw the line between brotherhood and corruption, between respect and fealty? We tend to make this line very fuzzy, turning a strength into a weakness.” 

    So how is ethical behaviour to be taught in Asian business schools? Alejo Sison, professor of business ethics in the philosophy department of the University of Navarra, Spain, has written widely on corruption in Asia, especially in his native Philippines. He argues that there are culturally appropriate ways of driving tricky ethical lessons home. 

    For example, professors might ask students if they would want their own family to suffer like other families might as a result of immoral or illegal actions. “As educators we simply try to provide [students] with tools or a moral compass to navigate through life's moral mazes,” he says.

    Yet Howard Harries, who teaches corporate ethics in Adelaide, Singapore and Hong Kong, says research shows that, when taught, people can become better at ethical decisions. “Narrative is important. Ethics is learnt through stories,” he says. 

    Case studies are clearly useful in showing how dishonest tycoons can come undone, or revealing how tricky dilemmas – whether, say, to fire loyal but inefficient employees – can be finessed.

Yet, if a lecturer is honest, the students will have to be told that in a messy, unfair world they will have to look within themselves to make difficult ethical decisions, says Lee Kaun-han, the former dean of business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“You can teach them how to approach difficult situations until you are blue in the face, but in the end they will need the strength of character to do what is right.”

Business education, he says, is not all about money and efficiency. “You might be surprised to hear the students respond very well to the idea of personal integrity for its own sake. This ultimately is what being a good businessman is really about,” says Prof Lee.

如果新聞標題可信的話，那么，亞洲正迸發著創業活力——還有行賄受賄、秘密交易和公司詐騙。

例如，中國藥監局局長最近因收受賄賂被處以死刑，而上海市委書記因盜用社保基金鋃鐺入獄。人們普遍認為，有權有勢的人能鉆法律的空子。

曼谷薩新工商管理研究生院(Sasin Business School)MBA課程負責人皮曼•林巴帕榮(Piman Limpaphayom)表示：“在許多亞洲社會，互惠互利都是巨大文化優勢的一個源泉。它把我們綁在了一起，是一種巨大的安慰。”

“但是，你該怎么劃分交情與腐敗、敬重與愚忠呢？我們往往把界線劃得很模糊，把優勢變成了劣勢。”

那么，亞洲商學院是如何教授倫理行為的呢？西班牙納瓦拉大學(University of Navarra)哲學系商業倫理教授阿萊霍•西松(Alejo Sison)寫過大量關于亞洲腐敗的文章，尤其是在他的祖國菲律賓。他提出，有一些文化上比較恰當的方式可以解決棘手的倫理問題。

例如，教授可以問問學生，他們是否愿意自己的家人像其它家庭那樣，承受不道德或非法行為造成的后果。他表示：“作為教育者，我們只是努力提供給學生一些工具或是一個道德羅盤，為他們穿越生命中的道德迷宮導航。”

在阿德萊德、新加坡和香港講授公司倫理課程的霍華德•哈里斯(Howard Harries)表示，研究顯示，接受過相關教育后，人們會更善于做出倫理決策。他指出：“敘述很重要。倫理知識是通過故事獲得的。”

在展示不誠信的企業界大亨如何會自取滅亡，或揭示棘手的難題（比如說，是否該解雇忠誠但無效率的員工）怎樣能巧妙解決時，個案研究顯然很有用。

然而，曾擔任香港中文大學(Chinese University of Hong Kong)商學院院長的Lee Kaun-han指出，如果講課的人誠實，就必須告訴學生，在一個混亂不公的世界，他們只能憑良心進行艱難的倫理決策。

“你可以教他們如何處理困境，一直教到臉色發青。但最終，他們要采取正確的行動，還是需要人格的力量。”

Lee Kaun-han表示，商業教育教的并不全是金錢和效率。他說：“聽到學生對為人正直這種觀點反響熱烈，你可能會覺得驚訝。但這點正是當一個好商人真正需要的素質。”