What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Business Ethics?
Unethical and ethical business practices can both make money legally, but while ethical business can be more difficult to conduct it also builds longer-lasting customer relationships and constructs recognized and respected brands. Unethical business is not bound by consideration for customer well-being and can thus profit without scruple.
Unethical business practices include making exaggerated or unsupported business claims, catering to a group through targeted ads while opposing its interests in another campaign, and many other deceptive practices. This practice prioritizes short-term thinking and is a route unavailable in ethical business.
Ethical business has the advantage of durability over time. A business exercising ethical practices makes, to the best of its ability, only true claims and pursues only a single ideological platform. This allows ethical businesses to develop tight bonds with their target markets and to build reputations for honesty.
Ethical businesses may not have access to as many strategies as unethical businesses. In a period of economic crisis they cannot adopt unethical practices without damaging their reputation, and it can be harder for them to intentionally change their image when the market demands such an action. They are overall more stagnant entities which become bound to single viewpoints, products and platforms for better or for worse.
