MBS 98-32
Patterns of Fairness Judgments in North America and the People's Republic
of China
Wen-Qiang Bian, L. Robin Keller
This paper covers the results of five surveys conducted in the United
States, Canada, and the People's Republic of China. These surveys illustrate
the differences and similarities in ethical tradeoff patterns regarding
fairness between North Americans and Chinese, in situations concerning
health and safety risks and in situations involving pricing of a variety
of goods and services under a number of market settings. Although the results
are tied to special contexts, the general pattern of findings is quite
clear. On health and safety issues, U.S. graduate business students in
California were found to make decisions consistent with their fairness
judgments in health and safety risk settings. In contrast, the fairness
judgments of Chinese graduate business students do not necessarily coincide
with their own decisions in the same health and safety situations. On marketplace
issues, responses of members of the Canadian public, in addition to recognizing
market forces, demonstrate significant concern for the protection of consumers'
interests, while market principles appear to dominate most of the responses
of Chinese and California graduate business students. These results provide
valuable insights for multinational businesses involved in North American-Chinese
joint ventures when developing strategies on pricing negotiations, and
bidding on environmentally sensitive projects.