The world of business is a fast paced environment and an exciting place to be where things are constantly changing. This includes one of the oldest and biggest parts of business, which is ethics. Every country throughout the world has a different perspective on how they handle business ethics and this is not talking about comparing a third world country to a first world country. This includes the top four largest emerging economies in the world, also known as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). These countries do have a lot in common other than the fact that they are leading economic countries in the world. As much as they have in common with the way that they handle business, they all stem from different backgrounds with different ideas and perspectives on ethics.These similarities and differences over the years have been compared to other nations, such as the United States. This is very important because the United States is a leading country in the world of business but compared to the BRIC it is a very young country with a melting pot of people who come from different cultures. It’s important to remember in the world business that ethics plays an important role especially in the BRIC when it comes to their similarities and differences between themselves and also the United States and where it all stems from culturally. Similarities All four of the BRIC countries, as different as they are have one very big thing in common with each other, which is loyalty. All four of them come from cultural backgrounds which all take loyalty very seriously in day to day life and this quality that they all have seeps through into the way they handle business. In Brazil, they have a loyally system known as paternalism, which in their culture dates back to the royal Crown. Paternalism is their relationship they sustain between the bosses and their employees where the leaders of the business make their employees feel like they can count on them to be taken care of and in exchange the employees are loyal to their superiors and the business. In Russia, India and China they are known to rely less on legal business contracts and more on personal contracts that they make with one another on a level of respect and trust they have that each person will hold up their end of the bargain. They rely their business loyalty mostly on friendships and expecting that if you do a favor for someone the favor will one day equally be returned. As different as these countries can be culturally, they do however share the same level of cultural beliefs about loyalty. Differences Although these countries stem from similar roots of loyalty, they have differences in how ethics are portrayed in everyday business. Many of these ethical practices span from peace and harmony to disregard for personal property and high tolerances for corruption. In Russia they are holding true to their cultural backgrounds and they still show to be the least ethical out of four of the countries. They have a very low regard for other people's private property and a very high tolerance for corruption. They also keep a second set of books for their companies, one for mafia purposes and one for casual business purposes. In China and India, they are the opposite of their neighbors in Russia and use much more peaceful values. They do tend to have less formal business contracts and ethics and take everything in as it's own unique situation. In Brazil, they are the in between of the other three countries, starting to see more and more companies become more ethical but the number is still less than half. As of 2009 only 189 out of 500 of their top companies developed modern ethical behaviors. Even though all four of these countries are the top emerging economies in the world they all still portray ethics in very different ways. Cultural History Every country in the BRIC is a very old and culturally established country. Each of them have their own way of doing things that