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Does a Business Need to Be Ethical to Be Successful?

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Submitted By christinaharkin
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Primark, one of the UK’s most popular retailers of budget clothing, has also been rated the country’s least ethical retailer. With reference to Primark or any business you have studied, to what extent does a company’s ethical stance determine its long-term success? [40]

The ethical environment - The moral beliefs and attitudes from both inside and outside a business that influence its behaviour. Due to the current economic environment, many businesses are being forced to fight for survival and they therefore lose focus on long-term success and instead focus on short-term success. However the larger companies, which are blessed with sufficient finances and stability, such as Marks and Spencer and John Lewis are focusing all their efforts into improving their reputation, brand, revenue and costs all in hope of securing long-term success. In order to improve their reputation and brand image they are more than ever before, adopting ethical business practices including ethical sourcing, marketing, pricing and treatment towards employees. However, despite this positive move in the right direction from some businesses, others are being forced to seek success through other, unethical means such as unlawful treatment towards employees, unethical means of advertising, pricing, selling, contracting, sourcing and overall failing to meets the current laws and legislations, causing them to gain bad publicity and tarnished reputations yet, in some cases such as Amazon and Primark, they have managed to not only remain successful but thrive. The reason for this is that an unethical company in one market could fail due to consumer action, yet an unethical company in another market could dominate. Why? Because target markets expect different things and react in different ways. For example, Primark’s customers are the bargain hunters of the retail industry, they want low cost

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