Business ethics and finance in Greater China: Synthesis and future directions in sustainability, CSR, and fraud

Following the financial crisis and recent recession, the center of gravity of global economic growth and competitiveness is shifting toward emerging economies. As a leading and increasingly influential emerging economy, China is currently attracting the attention of academics, practitioners, and policy makers. There is a rise of research interest in and publications on issues relating to China within high-quality international academic journals. We therefore organized a special issue conference in conjunction with the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) in Lhasa, Tibet, on May 19-20, 2014, on the topic of Business Ethics in Greater China: Past, Present and Future. The papers for the special issue were at the intersection of ethics and finance, and fit within one of three themes: environment and sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and fraud. Within these themes, issues of intellectual capital protection, gender equality, political connections, regional development, investor protection, corporate stewardship, trust and corruption, and corporate transparency each play a significant role. In this paper, we survey these studies and the related literature to provide a comprehensive coverage of business ethics and finance issues that affect China.