Kocaömer, NeslihanKalemci, R. Arzu2025-05-112025-05-1120241308-40702149-8148https://doi.org/10.12711/tjbe/m4218https://search.trdizin.gov.tr/en/yayin/detay/1360471/understanding-of-business-ethics-in-nations-through-a-comparison-of-american-and-turkish-business-ethics-literatureThis study aims to contribute to field studies by discussing how the sources of hypernorms in different countries with different cultural contexts affect different understanding of business ethics based on a content anal- ysis of articles published in Turkey and the United States of America retrieved from academic databases querying ‘business ethics’ in their titles. Results for Turkey show that the historically- and culturally-rooted understanding of sovereign state manifests itself both in its national business system, paternalistic features and a high-power-dis- tance society. As a result of the sovereign state ideology, the dominant local economic community in Turkey is the state which can lay down ethical norms for its members through micro-social contracts. This ultimately lays the groundwork for the emergence of a context-specific business ethics approach. By contrast, the dominant local economic community seems to be the corporations in the USA where the micro-social contract may include that establishing strong ethical principles is the responsibility of corporations as the state does not fully regulate the relationship between individuals and businesses.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessBusiness EthicsHypernormsSocial ContractTurkeyUSAArticle10.12711/tjbe/m4218