Business ethics as competitive advantage?

Different economic systems, in the light of the social justice, define ethical behavior in a different way. Due to the greater number of failures and negative consequences that today's companies' experience, ethics in business takes more and more attention. Managers' ethical dilemmas spread from decisions concerning employees' rights and duties, responsibility towards environment, product safety and relationship with consumers to anticompetitive and questionable practices. In the area of marketing, companies recognized the importance of ethical behavior by giving a special attention to it. Marketing acknowledges ethical behavior as an important intangible component part that enables competitive advantage for the company. This paper is focused on exploring how different characteristics, such as gender, age and corporate ethical values correlate with personal moral philosophies. The main question is: should we consider business ethics as competitive advantage in globalization and transition process?