Moral and Ethical Conceptions of Entrepreneurs: Cross-cultural Aspects

Dmitrieva Victoria, Lyutikova Elena

1. Introduction

Attitude to various economic aspects of human existence (wealth, consumption, accumulation, etc.) in terms of ethics and morality has been of interest even for ancient philosophers. Modern research is based on the premise that the moral dimension is the most important component of political and economic reality, especially nowadays when entrepreneurship is a key factor in the progressive development of society. At the same time, there is a widening gap between spiritual and material, which was formulated by E. Fromm (1998) [1] in a dilemma, "to have or to be".

According to sociologists in the second half of the 20th century the centuries-old process of forming a new species of human - homo cons replaced by [2], so there is the need to examine and re-examine the ethical and value aspects of the activities of the individual in the economic world.

The new understanding of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship in sociology (I.Shumpeter, P.Draker, I.Kirtsner, G.Pinshop, G.Saymon, F.von Hayek, A. Shapiro, and others) and psychology (A.Maslow, K.Rodzhers, A. Meneghetti, etc.) based on the humanistic views, distances itself from the view of entrepreneurship as a simple aspiration for enrichment and consumption, and involves a wide range of ways of self-realization: taking personal responsibility, risk-taking, independent behavior in the uncertain market environment, with the aim not only to make profits, but also to form the values to increase the demand for high quality of the new products.

Ethical regulation of administrative, economic, business, activities have been actively studied since the 60's of 20th century, particularly with respect to moral judgments, factors of preference of rules and guidelines of moral choice, psychological characteristics of business practices.-oriented personality 3]. Regarding psychology of entrepreneurship, this practical approach is particularly important: and ethical psychology could give the entrepreneurs the practical guidance for their work, where they have to resolve ethical dilemmas, business problems, and as a result to contribute the development of the society. In the studies of Russian authors on the analysis of the moral and psychological determinants of economic identity of managers show that moral and psychological characteristics of the economic activity are quite closely interrelated [4], [5]. It has been shown that the "moral assessment of the business world has an impact on the choice of material self-building method and developing strategies of individual behavior in the business interaction"[6].

The modern entrepreneur operates in the global market, in the context of globalization, when the borders between the countries disappear. Despite this it is still important to take into account the specificity associated with belonging to a particular culture, which also can be expressed through the features of the moral sphere of personality....