Ethical directions and cultural dimensions of construction professionals in Malaysia: With a framework of ethical decision making

Corporate ethics and business ethics are becoming new requirements for a successful business in the 21^st century. This trend continues to be strengthened throughout the industries and the construction industry cannot be exceptional. This research provides a practical framework of ethical decision making for construction together with the perceptions of construction professionals in respect to ethics and culture. A project factor approach is incorporated in the framework to reflect the unique feature of construction. The framework is based on Agent (virtue ethics) - Action (deontology) - Results (consequentialism) model and the stakeholder concept of construction projects. The framework also intends to identify the ethical directions - either mean-oriented or end-oriented. The effectiveness of the framework has been proved through a survey with construction professionals in Malaysia. The survey also includes cultural dimensions as ethic is a subset of culture. The outcomes of the survey shows that the construction professional in Malaysia are slightly more mean-oriented than end-oriented, and their cultural dimensions are more power oriented (PDI), more individualistic (IDV) and more masculine (MAS) compared to the Malaysia national level cultural dimensions.