All interesting questions. I won’t answer any of them here. Rather, what fascinates me is the response of this diverse group of suppliers to the question “Does ethics pay?” In this group of 51 employees of Hungarian companies from the fields of advertising, logistics, packaging, travel, recruitment and a few others, 67% opined that companies in Hungary that do business legally and ethically are more successful than other companies in the long term, but may be less successful in the short term.

This percentage in itself is not intuitively surprising. When I think about how I would answer the question in the U.S., I think I would choose the same option. In the long run the reputational gains from doing the right thing outweigh any perceived gains from lying, cheating and stealing. However even our consulting firm has lost contracts to competitors who have under-scoped a project, knowing it is hard to kick an incumbent out midstream. Despite the fact that many businesspeople have encountered rogue behavior by competitors, only 6% of the Hungarian companies surveyed believe that sleazy companies win in the long term.

What fascinates me about this Hungarian perception that crime doesn’t pay, at least in the long term, is how consistent their perception is to that in other countries where we have asked the question in similar sessions.

% agreeing that “Companies that are ethical and law abiding will do better in the long run, and may suffer in the short run”
Sri Lanka 66%
India 62%
China 65%
Thailand 65%
Poland 77%
Philippines 71%

We’re going to start asking this question closer to home, and will let update you on what we find. What do you think? Does ethics pay? Short term or long?