In the last chapter differences in cultural values, and their possible connections with ethical values, were discussed. This was premised on such differences in cultural values not providing an explanation for differences in ethical values, but ethics being a subset of values. Hence national cultural values provide a context for discussing ethics and ethicality, but not an explanation of why there are differences in ethical values, as many studies try to argue (Jackson, 2001).

The decision of a multinational company to lay off considerable numbers of employees in a subsidiary may be judged differently from culture to culture. Higher levels of loyalty expected of a company for its employees in collectivist countries such as Japan and Korea (Bae and Chung, 1997) may provide the context for such differences. Similarly the degree of loyalty expected from employees to their company may differ across cultures on the basis of the degree to which collectivism is focused on the corporation (Hui, 1990), or the extent to which individualism prevails in a culture (Hofstede, 1980a/2003) and employees have a calculative or instrumental regard towards their organizations. Also, the extent to which group members may rally around a disadvantaged colleague when threatened with dismissal and the degree to which a manager should go along with this could differ according to the extent to which collectivism is focused on the group (Hui, 1990) or on the level of egalitarian commitment (Schwartz, 1994) which is evident in an individualistic society (see Table 4.1).