Eastern Ethics in Business  Eastern ethics includes the ethics or ways of thinking derived from East and South East Asia. This includes Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian and Japanese ethics and the influence of this in business. Through a combination of globalisation and growing diversity, Eastern ethics and spiritual practices have become prominent within businesses and their conduct. Across the Eastern and Oriental region, differing ethics arise from historic philosophies, religions or ways of thinking and may prohibit or encourage specific conduct. Confucianism originates from China and details the social values, institutions, rituals, virtues and transcendental ideals. Confucian ethics develops the personal characters and virtues of benevolence, ritual propriety, righteousness, wisdom and integrity. These teachings were developed by Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) and overlap with commercial activity and relations. Benevolence (or Ren) is a Confucian ethic that necessitates a person to uphold this characteristic within a business or non-business interaction which mirrors the historic expectation of rulers demonstrating benevolence. Mencius (Mencius, 1970, p. 49) stated that “What is the point of mentioning the word ‘profit’? All that matters is that there should be benevolence and rightness” which entails that profit in business is reasonable if delivered through benevolence and rightness. Business practices are also considered to be carried out with sincerity as indicated by the Analects. On a government level, benevolence is expected to ensure welfare and responsibilities are fulfilled with moral leadership. Neo-Confucian considers an approach based on speculative metaphysical truth combined with personal self-cultivation in social ethics. This theory was established by Zhu Xi during the Song Dynasty and was derived through the classical Confucius texts from the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects and Mencius. His theory states that people are considered good by the way they display their endowments and social and familial environment. In terms of business, profits, wealth, position and selfish desires are intolerable when engaging in commercial activity as these human desires override the moral principle of self-cultivation and allowing the purified mind to naturally respond to these situations. Under the Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming had a different approach to Neo-Confucian ethics in commercial activity to Zhu. His ethical approach centralises on the combination of action and knowledge, or personal morality, defining social well-being. Vulgar Learning saw memorisation, recitation, broad learning and textual studies were considered knowledge accrued externally but should instead rely on the moral principles (li) of the external world.