FROM BUSINESS CORRUPTION TO BUSINESS ETHICS – NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE COMPETITIVE STRATEGY OF THE FIRM

The word corruption became a hyper used one in the last few years into the public discourse – related with politics, business or public administration. In Romania’s case it was (and still is) especially related with the requirements of the adhesion to the European Union. All the infrastructures and superstructures of the society are suspected of being (more or less) contaminated by the corruption scourge – according to different studies and reports (made by national and international organisms) measuring the corruption level and its perception. The main idea of this study is to review and analyze the existing literature (which is mainly foreign) in the field of business related corruption – private-to-public corruption and particularly private-to-private corruption, form that is generally neglected and less examined in Romania – in order to identify why and how is possible and necessary for firms to make a shift from business corruption to business ethics. The competitive strategy of the firm can emphasize ethics among the core values of it, source of long lasting competitive advantage, a key resource of surviving into the global economic world and competition.