Abstract

Business ethics is an important emerging issue. Based on the nature of human being and human society, this paper tries to study the formation and sustainability of business ethics. It is found that social consensus of business community is a necessary condition for the formation of business ethics. The consensus of business community are achieved through a long evolution process. Two mechanisms, collective social pressure and internalization, sustain business ethics. The effectiveness of the former mechanism depends on the "transferring effect" of social pressure, the cohesiveness of social consensus, and the structural holes of social network structure. The depth of internalization and possible conflicts between norms will affect the effectiveness of the second mechanism. The paper concludes with some research questions for further study.