Corporate dominance and business ethical behavior

Poor ethical behavior of business can lead to myriad social problems such as overpriced, dangerous and unhealthy products, unfair wages, discrimination, and the exploitation of labor. This paper theorizes that both a needed condition and a bolstering factor for the practice of unethical business behavior is the increased opportunity to engage in unethical behavior resulting from greater business power. Using cross country regression analysis, this paper tests the proposition that business ethical behavior deteriorates with increases in corporate market dominance. The empirical findings of the paper provide support for the notion that greater market dominance has a negative effect on business ethical behavior.