In the first part of the paper, factual information is given about developments in European business ethics since it started on a more or less institutionalized basis, five or six years ago. tn the second part some comments are presented on the meaning of the developments and the possible causes. Attention is given to resemblances and differences between American and European business ethics.
In the short last part some suggestions are proposed about tasks business ethics will face in the next decade.
There are bound to be some crude assumptions inherent in any attempt to represent Europe in twenty minutes, on whatever subject, unless perhaps the subject is business ethics! Difficult as it surely is to represent the whole of Europe abroad, it seems quite feasible to present European business ethics in a limited amount of time. The message might simply be: "European business ethics today is American business ethics of about eight years ago, with the sole difference that European business ethics is debated in German, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch and Norwegian as well as English". However, for those of you who wonder what American business ethics sounds like when it employs seven different languages at one and the same time, perhaps some information may be useful and clarifying. Let me try to give it. But as the information available is not adequate to fill the time granted to me in the