ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the challenges to business ethics during the transition process in Central Europe and Russia during the twenty-five years since the fall of communism. It explains the difficulties in analyzing business ethics in former communist countries. The chapter focuses on the transition from communism to markets. The transition from centrally planned economy to market economy was one of the most interesting, complex and least-predictable processes in history. In some cases the conversation was enriched with examples from the transitional economies or otherwise given a particular emphasis on specific practices. During the transition the hardest test for business ethics has been business ethics as a practice. Unfortunately, the transition process didn't change totally this negative perception of the link between business on the one hand, and, on the other, the enrichment of those whose newfound wealth signaled illicit gains or, at best, social arrivisme.
