SURVEY OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR IN HUNGARIAN METAL AND MACHINERY SUPPLY CHAINS

Abstract

In today's business world, ethics and responsibility appear as vital value. Globalization of markets, free access to information, and increasing social and environmental problems have an impact on global ethics, and urge the integration of ethical issues into everyday business practice. In this article, we present the results of our qualitative investigation of business ethics at network level. Our research involves experts from the Hungarian metal industry and machinery supply chains as well as corporate executives; we ask them on the role of ethics and ethical behaviour in renewing their contracts, in their relationship-specific investments or business relationships in general. According to our experience, it is common for buyers to compete even a long-lasting business relationship through tender. Although machine building is a technology-intensive area, we see that the relationship-specific investments do not play important role in this sphere. We think that the companies feel the network effects in their supply chain but still manage their dyadic business relationships much more actively.

Key words: business ethics, relationship-specific investment, tender, supply chain