International business is an economic activity that includes investment activities and trade per-formed by natural and legal persons across international state borders, i.e., on the global market. Business ethics deals with business activities, decision-making processes and activities from the aspect of wrong and right. Ethics implies taking actions that ensure applicable responsible behaviour in everyday business situations. Responsible companies understand that ethical be-haviour is important because it is reflected in all decisions and actions of the company. Trans-parent and fair behaviour can often be harder and longer way to do business, but any contrary behaviour is ultimately punishable. There is no single way to do ethical business, but there are a number of factors that shape ethics and provide guidelines on how to behave ethically. Com-pared to the world, Croatia lags behind in the implementation of business ethics due to poor work ethic which is most noticeable in small and medium enterprises that do not have a devel-oped business ethics management system. A possible reason for harmful social phenomenon in business may be insufficient knowledge of general business ethics because there are no spe-cialized institutions in Croatia that would represent the basis of ethical business. In order to prevent corruption, it is necessary to abide by regulations of companies, rules and laws by the government and their supervision.