Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;00:1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer | 1 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 | INTRODUCTION Over the years, religion has played a paramount role in most soci- eties, including in affecting the cultural context, which is strongly influenced worldwide by religious beliefs and organizations. At the same time, it may influence ethical practices developed by firms, ei- ther through individuals' personal values or through its influence on culture, leading to a set of social norms. The theoretical base that may link different religions to the inte- grating approach of businesses may rest on stakeholder theory. As Retolaza, Aguado, and Alcaniz (2019) hold, this theory pays special attention to the different social and economic factors that contrib- ute to society, stressing that corporate management should not be focused just on shareholders' interests, but must comprise the re- maining stakeholders' interests, creating value for each stakeholder in search of the common good (Argandoña, 2015; Freeman, Wicks, & Parmar, 2004). Therefore, the final aim is to create value for each stakeholder that contributes to the company, and not only to obtain economic profit. Consequently, from the perspective of stakeholder theory, considering the company as an institution that is not only economic, but also social as well, will encourage ethical practices inside organizations, and consideration of the impact on their envi- ronment. In this context, religions, by sharing the same perspective, also boost a corporate ethical vision which goes beyond purely eco- nomic objectives and pursues the integral development of individu- als (Cremers, 2017). Previous works about the influence of different religions on business ethics have evidenced that religions are expected to rein- force ethical decision-making and the implementation of a higher number of ethical practices. In this sense, religiosity may influ- ence “an individual's attitudes, views, decisions, and ultimately behaviors” (Nelson, James, Miles, Morrell, & Sledge, 2017, p. 385). However, research conducted on the influence of religion on eth- ical corporate practices (Craft, 2013; Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000; O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2005; Vitell, 2009) has not reached conclusive results, suggesting that religiosity does not directly imply ethical behavior (Weaver & Agle, 2002). Vitell (2009) con- cludes that there is evidence to affirm that religious people are more prone to developing stronger ethical rules and judgments in the business context compared to those with weaker beliefs. Therefore, religion can be considered to have a somewhat posi- tive relationship with corporate ethical decision-making (O'Fallon Received: 13 September 2019 | Revised: 10 January 2020 | Accepted: 24 February 2020 DOI: 10.1111/beer.12277 ORIGINAL ARTICLE An analysis of business ethics in the cultural contexts of different religions Isabel Gallego-Alvarez 1 | Luis Rodríguez-Domínguez 1 | Javier Martín Vallejo 2 1 Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Department of Business Studies, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain 2 Facultad de Medicina, Department of Statistics, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Correspondence Luis Rodríguez-Domínguez, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Department of Business Studies, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa, Universidad de Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno, Salamanca 37007, Spain. Email: lrodomin@usal.es Abstract The aim of our research is to analyze how different religions influence business ethics. We develop an index of practices in the field of business ethics, made up of 19 items containing practices related to workers, consumers, products, human rights, man- agement of ethical conflicts, and crime prevention. Also, we consider a wide range of religion affiliations. To undertake this research, we use a panel data sample com- posed of 11,956 firm-year observations from 18 countries. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we posit some hypotheses based on the religions considered. The results obtained show that a higher percentage of religious adherents in the country where a company does business usually involve the implementation of more ethical practices in the corporate field. These findings are obtained for Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu religions. In contrast, this does not stand for Buddhist and folk religions. Also, countries where there is no predominant religion do not show a confluence between religion and ethical corporate practices.