A critique of the empirical methods of integrative social contracts theory

Integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) uses empirical methods to develo p guidelines for international business ethics. This article criticizes ISC T in terms of the way people actually think about contracts and agreements around the globe. Differences in orientations to communications context, mo ral reasoning, and institutional and structural conditions make the identif ication of authentic norms, hypernorms, and relevant communities problemati c. The difficulties of the empirical methods suggest recourse to more tradi tional theoretical approaches for the identification of hypernorms as well as a stronger test for the compatibility of authentic norms with hypernorms .