ĐẠO ĐỨc kinh doanh tại việt nam thực tại và giải pháp sv. Nguyễn Thị Nga

and benefits of the community.

ethics definition in compare with “business ethics” understanding in Vietnam? (2) How is

business ethics application in Vietnam nowadays; and (3) How is the perspective of

business ethics application in Vietnam in coming period? Previous research on these

questions has been lacking. Even though recently there are many research and articles about

Vietnam, but most business writers and professionals concentrated in analyzing its

economic successes. Some articles mentioned business ethics but none of them provided a

broad view of business ethics application in Vietnam.

were selected from four areas of management: business, business ethics, marketing and

international business. Articles were selected from Business Premier Source, database,

mainly from 2000 up to now. A brief questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of

businessmen and students, studying in Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, Vietnam. There

were about more than 10 questions in the questionnaire, asking from: “Have you ever heard

about some special situations.

including 80 businessmen and 20 students, who were studying from 1st to 3rd year in Foreign

Trade University in Hanoi. Some of them also had experience in working as part-time

employee. The ratio method in description methodology was taken to analyze data in three

stages. In the 1st one the answers/content of all respondents has been analyzed to provide an
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overview of business ethics in Vietnam. In the 2nd stage, only answers from students have

been analyzed and in the 3rd one the findings earned in the two stages have been compared

with each other to make a conclusion.

culture, corporate culture, etc., issue of business ethics began emerging after the market

economy reforms were made in 1991, when Vietnam started to join in the

internationalization and globalization process. Previously, in the centralized planned

economy, the issues were never mentioned in Vietnam. In a command economy, all

business activities were conducted by government orders. Through such orders, ethical

conduct was considered as completely obeying the higher authorities’ instructions. There

was a shortage of almost all kinds of goods, those being successful in buying goods were

really lucky, thus nobody could afford to complain about the goods’ quality. Because supply

exceeded demand, service quality in the distribution network was quite poor; customers had

little chance to complain about it. At that time, industry in Vietnam was underdeveloped,

there were limited numbers of manufacturers, and furthermore nearly all of them were state

owned, thus, there was no need to consider such issues as trademarks or intellectual

property rights. Most employees were working for the state, where the discipline and bonus

system were unified and simple. There were not any strikes or labor conflicts to deal with.

But since Vietnam has joined in internationalization from 1991, there were new issues

coming up such as: intellectual property rights, food safety regulations, strikes, stock

market, etc.,…and thus the issue of business ethics became more popular to society. In this

paper, author would like to present some preliminary findings of business ethics in Vietnam.

These findings are based on information, collected from Vietnam as well as foreign

literatures, and a mini – survey, which has been done in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam from

November 2007 to January 2008.

for businessmen but also for intellectual people. Till now, there were very rarely books

about business ethics, most of them were translated from American books.
Maybe the 1st academic book of this topic in Vietnam was “WHAT'S ETHICAL IN

BUSINESS?” by Verne E. Henderson, published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd in January

5, 1992; the book was translated into Vietnamese by Ho Kim Chung, published in Vietnam

in November 1996 by Nha Xuat ban Van hoa, but it’s content and translation weren’t

adequate and didn’t bring about many attentions even between intellectual people in

Vietnam. Recently, there were more articles on this topic, especially in Chungta magazine

(an internal magazine of FPT group, a leading group of IT in Vietnam, www.chungta.com)

or Diendandoanhnghiep newspaper (a newspaper for businessmen, issued by Vietnam

Commercial and Industrial Chamber – VCCI, www.dddn.com.vn) and some other magazine
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or newspapers, such as Saigon Times, Laodong, etc. But the articles mostly discussed about

some recent events in Vietnam, relevant to business ethics or provided some cases, taken

from foreign newspapers, magazines, without any deeper research of business ethics or

business ethics definition. In most Vietnamese high schools and universities, business ethics

isn’t taught as a subject in their curriculum or only as an elective subject. Business ethics is

not even mentioned in the texts of other related subjects, such as international business or

business management. However, sometimes it is mentioned, but done so very sparingly. The

most common thinking about business ethics is that it’s compliance with the rules! In most

Vietnamese high schools and universities, business ethics isn’t taught as a subject in their

curriculum or only as an elective subject. Business ethics is not even mentioned in the texts

of other related subjects, such as international business or business management. However,

sometimes it is mentioned, but done so very sparingly, as business ethics is to comply with

the rules! This misconception and very short idea on what business ethics are leads to a

narrow and underdeveloped idea of what business ethics should be concerned with.
Recently, under pressure of globalization, Vietnamese mass media mentions business

ethics quite frequently, but it doesn’t provide any official definition. As a result, even

though people often hear about business ethics, their understanding of the issue is still very

vague. The fact is shown quite clearly in the survey findings. 66/100 (66%) of those

surveyed answered that they had heard regularly about business ethics, while 34/100 (34%)

sometimes had heard about business ethics. We should note that the survey was conducted

in Hanoi, the capital and the second largest city in Vietnam, where the percentages can’t be

considered very high. But to answer the question: “What is business ethics in your

9/100 (9%) said “business ethics is protecting customers’ right”; none of them considered

business ethics should be both: complying with the rules and protecting customers’ rights.
The vague understanding of business ethics is the main reason leading to the shortage

of business ethics enforcement in practice.

production quality and corporate responsibility in environment protection. The 1^stquestion

was set up as: “What would you do, if your company gets the information that in one lot of

company’s production, some one has switched fault production, harmful for consumers,

with true one but no one can recognize the fault production by outward aspect?”
The question is based on a true story in Chicago in 1981. Someone put poison in

some bottles of Tylenol pain reliever produced by Johnson & Johnson (J & J) that were

being sold in supermarkets in the Chicago area, causing the death of 7 people. Policeman

never found the person responsible. Although this scandal happened only in Chicago and

security authorities thought that the person only put poison in some Tylenol at those

supermarkets, the managing board at J & J insisted on withdrawing all 31 million bottles of

Tylenol bottles distributed not only in the US but also all over the world for verification.

This decision cost USD $100 million but the high social responsibility along with an

effective PR campaign helped J&J earn back its’ market share in 6 months. But in our

survey, only 42 people, equal to 42%, chose the variant: “To withdraw immediately the

production, despite a finance loss”, 50 people, equal to 50% selected the variant: “Put a

notice up in every selling place and let the customers make the decision to buy or not”; and

8 people, (8%), decided on the variant: "Do nothing, because it is not the company’s fault! “

newspaper warned its citizens against using Vietnamese-made Chinsu soy sauce, because of

an analysis made by the Belgian Food Quality Agency indicated the soy sauce contained 3-

MCPD – a chemical contaminant known to cause cancer in animals and kidney damage – at

an unacceptably high level of 86 mg/kg, exceeding the EU permitted level of 0.05 mg/kg

nearly 200 times over the limit. But Chinsu denied its responsibility because they said

Chinsu didn’t export soy sauce to Belgium. The soy sauce could have been re-exported to

Belgium by another company or it could have been an imitation. Moreover, a 3- MCPD rate

in Chinsu soy sauce exceeded the EU regulations but remained within Vietnamese

regulations! This incident has alerted the appropriate Vietnamese authorities and consumers

to the harmful effects of 3-MCPD in soy sauce. The production used to be considered very

safe because of its natural origin. It is also a fact leading to a scandal in 2007, when 90% of

the Vietnamese soy sauce producing enterprises was found guilty by the appropriate

authorities for violating food safety regulations by exceeding the permitted 3-MCPD levels.

This incident has almost ruined the industry in Vietnam. Since this time all soy sauce

companies are required to put a statement on every product: “No 3-MCPD” in their product

to ensure customers of the safety of the product. Perhaps due to this well known fact, the

opinion of surveyed people for the question is more straightforward. 33/100 people

considered it as “Law breaking”, 25 people said: “Business ethics violation” and 42 people

considered it: “Violation in both!” No one considered it a nonviolation. But the findings also

indicate a vague delimitation between regulation and business ethics, because in fact the

company violated both, business law and ethics, due to fact that when a company exports

goods to any country, they should obey the rules of that country.
The question of the responsibility of entrepreneurs on the environment can be found

in the facts on numerous foreign companies investing in Vietnam taking advantage of the

vague and loose regulations on environmental protection, using technologies that pollute the

environment, affecting the health of workers and the community to reduce costs. There are

innumerable examples of this problem: textile mills without proper cleaning devices

affecting workers and people in the surrounding communities, subsequently, suffering from

lung diseases; footwear factories releasing waste water, polluting water sources; to name a

few. Companies do not have enough protection equipment for their workers, leading to a

high rate of work related accidents. In these cases, although companies do not break the law,

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they violate business ethics intentionally as they are conscious of the consequences

to take advantage on the vague and loose environmental laws of Vietnam, only 75 people,

equivalent to 75%, considered it an unacceptable thing, a business ethics violation; 25

people thought: "It’s acceptable because in doing business people can seize an

environment that much, depending entirely on the law when assessing business ethics in

companies.
2.3. The intellectual property issue in Vietnam:
It is such a hot problem, not only in Vietnam but also in most of developing

countries. Violation of intellectual property in Vietnam has a variety of reasons:

agricultural country, there were no achievements in products required to be protected like

industrial designs, inventions, and therefore, there were no regulations on intellectual

property rights. Moreover, as Vietnam is a country with a culture that values the community

highly, Vietnamese did not have a tradition of protecting private property. In the feudal

period and even the pre-integrated period, researchers and artists earned their livings by

receiving a salary; the law did not refer to the intellectual property rights system, fees for an

author were very low as they were thought to serve the community. This issue was only

taken seriously from 1991, when Vietnam signed the TRIPS agreement. However, as the

time for implementing this has been very short, only a little more than 10 years in

comparison to the hundreds years of intellectual property protection rights history in the

European or American continents, the consciousness of the Vietnamese people about

intellectual property rights is limited. One reason for this situation is economic. For

example: Stories about young wizard Harry Potter of J.K. Rowling are very popular in

Vietnam. In August 2007, as children over the world, Vietnamese children were eager to

wait for the 7th volume - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But their parents could be in

a big dilemma, if they wanted to respect intellectual properties. The cover price of an

official copy of the J.K.Rowling book was $38 in Vietnam, against an annual average salary

of $600, and illegal copies have been offered everywhere with about $7!”^vi.
One way of violating intellectual property, which is quite popular in Vietnam is that a

company brands its product intentionally rather like one famous product brand to dodge

law, making mistakes for consumers, for instance: a domestic company named their motors

as Hongda to imitate Honda, the very famous brand name from Japan. The result in this

question has confirmed this statement.
Answering for the question: "Give your opinion if a company brands its product

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like a famous one", only 16 people considered it as breaking the law, 37 considered it

as violating business ethics and 47 thought it was acceptable because they were not exactly

similar absolutely. What's more, of the 47 people that considered it as breaking the law,

there were 3 out of 20 students, who were educated about this issue. As a result, it can be

seen that intellectual property rights will be an unresolved problem in Vietnam for a long

time.
2.4. The relationship between employer and employee:
Recently, strikes became a serious problem in Vietnam. Statistics from 1995 up to

now have shown that there were more than 1,000 strikes, from big to small. Only in the first

quarter of 2007, there were 103 strikes in 14/64 provinces, cities with a population of

62,700 or more taking turns having strikes. Đồng Nai is the province that had the most with

35 strikes, followed by B́nh Dương with strikes, Ho Chi Minh City with 26 strikes. 98 out

of the 103 strikes were for economic reasons^vii.

and old equipment, and lack of worker safety conditions, no periodical health checks for

workers and occupational hazards and diseases are the main causes.
- Despite obeying rules of the law, the salary system is still low compared to the

average level of the labor’s life. Therefore, workers feel dissatisfied with the work place and

disloyal to enterprises.
- Inadequate knowledge of workers about the Labor Law
It was surprising that this situation happened not only in domestic private companies,

which were regarded to have small capital and little knowledge about the law, but also in

foreign invested companies, especially those from Taiwan and Korea. According to the

Institute of Workers’ and Trade Union, over the last years, 878 strikes have been staged in

FDI enterprises, accounting for 70.7% of the total strikes in Vietnam. A typical case is a

strike that happened on the morning of July 25th 2007, at Linh Trung I export processing

zone (Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City), by 1,300 workers of Danu Vina company (a

Korean wholly owned company) due to the company’s unreasonable policy. From July

2007, the company gave a salary increase of VND 50,000, (about USD 3) for 1 to 5 year

workers and VND 70,000, (less than USD 4) for 5 to 7 year workers. However, this policy

was granted only for workers having contracts before July of the previous year. In addition,

a monthly bonus for hard working workers of only VND 25,000 (equal to USD 1.5) was

given; much too low as the average meal cost VND 4,000 (equal to 25 US cent) and was of

very bad quality. Thievery, cause by unsecured locks, and bad sanitation conditions in the

company made workers feel more concerned, upset and angry.

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To solve the problem, in 2007 the Workers’ and Trade Union Institute under the Viet

enterprises, including Hanoi, HIM City, and the provinces of Dongnai, Binding, Ba Ria-

Vung Tau, Vinh Phuc, Bac Ninh and Hai Duong. The findings have shown that: in many

foreign direct investment (FDI) companies’, workers still face low wages, long extra

working hours and a hard life. Up to 45 per cent of FDI companies, workers have

complained about low wages; in nearly 16 per cent of the companies, workers were

dissatisfied about their extra working hours. Long working hours and low wages, sometimes

even lower than in private and state owned companies, are the main part of the problem.

Most FDI workers receive a low salary from VND 800,000 (USD 50) to VND 1,000,000

(USD 62) a month. Thus, only 30 per cent of the workers in FDI companies can have

enough money to offset their daily living costs. To increase the monthly income for

essential daily expenses, 42.5 per cent of the FDI workers have to work overtime, especially

those working in garment and leather enterprises. In several garment enterprises, the rate of

women laborers working extra hours has reached 55%, many of them have to work 16

hours/day, till falling down unconsciousviii. To solve the problem, the Institute has proposed

intensifying inspections and imposing stiff penalties on companies’ violations of the labor

code, including failure to provide social and health insurance. The Institute also has called

for amendments to laws on settlements of labor disputes and strikes to ensure that the strikes

are legal and protect the interests of both employees and their employers^ix.
This problem must be solved soon to protect the benefits of workers, enhance the

investing environment in Vietnam and attract more foreign investors. As the relationship

between employers and employees has been mentioned in the mass media in Vietnam, the

answers on this topic in our survey are quite positive. Vietnamese law prohibits employers

from refusing to employ female workers that have children. Also, female workers that have

children less than 3 years of age have the right to go to work 1 hour later than other

employees and are not required to work overtime. However, in fact, this law is only obeyed

in state owned companies while it is ignored in private and FDI companies. When being

asked for the opinion when "A company refused to recruit a female employee because she

had children and/or had a child under the age of 3 but forced her to work overtime", 25% of

the respondents considered it as breaking the law, 67% of the respondents considered it as

violating business ethics, but 8% considered it all right because all workers have to work

equally and that no one should be given preferential treatment. Thus, it can be understood

here that despite some limitations in knowledge, most respondents have the correct view on

this problem.

(less than 10 years old) so that the regulations on the accuracy of financial reports and

disclosed information of enterprises aren’t strictly controlled. Thus, recently many

enterprises have disclosed inaccurate information to gain profit and cause harm to investors.

The first serious case was the false financial report on the joint stock report of Bien

Hoa Confectionary Company (Bibica) in 2002 and the first 6 months of 2003. As Bibica

was one of the first 21 listed companies and the first listed company in the confectionary

industry on the stock market, based on those false figures, Bibica’s stock price rose very

quickly. But in fact, in an effort to improve its competitiveness on the market, Bibica

simultaneously launched a range of investment projects to expand production, launching

new products (moon cake, layer cake, and built a second confectionary plant, etc.). As a

result, the company’s debt to the bank increased. In addition, the rise of input materials’

price, new staff in finance - accounting department drove the company into more