What is Governance? The Ethical Dilemma for Leaders and Managers: Multiple Case Studies of Corruption from China

The objective of the paper is to look deeper on how these emergent and fast growing factors affect the relationship between ethical dilemma and governance in a newly industrialised country from the corruption and bribery aspect. The paper is explorative in nature. It identifies the need for new governance thinking, based on stakeholder and stewardship theories and transparency as well as its impacts in reducing corruption. The empirical study involves multiple qualitative case studies of multi-national corporations of transparency and governance in China (5 cases of multinational companies, and 1 corporate governance code). In this paper, we are not arguing on the role of governance as a control or reporting initiative for corruption, but its role to shun institutional weakness in reducing corruption and resource integration. The study will reveal the challenges of transforming the role of governance in fighting corruption. Strong governance system is a vital component of company efforts to reinforce the right incentives and practices and to address the corrupted practices that they confront and defy ethical dilemma. Governance takes account of all the interests that affect the viability, competence and moral character of an enterprise. Thus, the present results indicate, not only the positive relationship between governance and corruption, but also reveal the characteristics of dynamic governance thinking within a broader governance framework for developing values based service business. Future research in this area should focus on generalizing the present findings by studying the development and integration of governance and clearing the dilemma in other empirical settings and conceptualization, for instance developed economies.