Patterns of Fairness Judgments in North America and the People's Republic of China

This article covers the results of 5 surveys conducted in the United States, Canada, and the People's Republic of China. These surveys illustrate the differences and similarities of 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, American 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, whereas market principles appear to dominate most of the responses of Chinese and Californian 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.