Business Ethics and Globalization In recent years, many politicians, business leaders, and economists have argued for the need for global business to promote economic development and reduce poverty around the world. “Multinational corporations, the World Trade Organization, the G8 summit and various international financial institutions should promote free trade and promote economic development for the people of various participating countries, including the least developed ones” (Ho, 2004). In many ways, the increasing globalization of the economies of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan is making business practices more uniform. The structure and organization of businesses, manufacturing technologies, society. Over the past decade, highly publicized incidents of misconduct by corporate managers have occurred in virtually every major industrial economy in the world, as well as in nearly every industrial nation in the world. Globalization will continue to pose a challenge to business ethics because it reduces the discretion that both individuals and business organizations have in making business decisions. Globalization also brings increased competition, which means organizations must deploy products quickly while at the same time working to keep costs as low as possible. This will require companies to focus more on profitability than anything else. With the increase of globalization there has been a growing ethical gap between the United States and the rest of the developed world. The United States conducts more research at both an academic and organizational level than any other country in the world. Even the ethical gap has not decreased in the wake of globalization, in fact it has only increased. An example of a law passed due to ethical failures of businesses is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This act, created in 2002, covers the responsibilities of an organization's board of directors, as well as the reporting requirements it has, and required review of regulatory standards, which are used to prevent financial fraud and accounting fraud. Sarbanes-Oxley was created in response to scandals at three major corporations: Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom. These companies misrepresented their financial information by acquiring another company, hiding operating expenses, or hiding the amount of debt the company had. These ethical failures led to the complete collapse of Enron and WorldCom and caused investors to lose millions of dollars in stock value.