Editorial

A special issue of the journal Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe) is dedicated to the diverse attributes of business ethics across the region, addressing specific challenges and cultural contexts that influence corporate sustainability and competitiveness.Establishing and adhering to ethical principles in business cultivates a business environment and has positive impacts not only on business but also on society as a whole.Business ethics is an important component of the social pillar of the Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) concept, which resonates intensely in the business environment of the European Union and whose main goal is to create comprehensive conditions for sustainable growth.The published articles offer interesting perspectives on various areas of business ethics and introduce a range of new approaches.Twenty authors from nine countries participated in the preparation of the special issue.In the first article, Dorusincova et al. emphasize the growing importance of business ethics, especially in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment, as it influences companies' behavior towards their stakeholders (employees, partners, investors, and society).The authors define key attributes of business ethics in the SME segment and examine their impact on perceptions of the ESG concept in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.Their findings confirm that business ethics plays a key role in shaping a clear perception of sustainability and that its embedding in corporate culture can contribute to the successful implementation of ESG principles.Belas Jr. et al. examine selected attributes of business ethics for the implementation of the ESG concept in Poland and Hungary.The research is based on primary data collected through a questionnaire survey of approximately 700 entrepreneurs and company managers in both countries.The results of their research indicate a significant impact of business ethics on ESG implementation in both analyzed countries, though the relative significance of individual factors differs across the two.While in Poland, anti-corruption measures and formal ethical instruments play a key role, in Hungary, the dominant factor is entrepreneurs' ethical attitudes towards the application of business ethics principles.The comparative analysis emphasizes the importance of national and cultural context in shaping the relationship between business ethics and ESG implementation.Another text (Amoah et al.) examines sustainability strategies in ethical SMEs in the manufacturing sector that deal with the tension between moral imperatives and market pressures.The study findings are systematically compared with empirical evidence from Central European countries.This cross-regional comparison reveals both convergences, such as the primacy of cognitive capabilities over resource abundance in driving sustainability strategies, and divergences, including the dominant role of regulatory pressure in Central Europe compared to moral imperatives in Ghana.The results advance theory by integrating cognitive capabilities as a mediator in the context of emerging markets and identifying institutional contingencies in African and European post-transition economies.In the following article, Skaloš and Lašáková examine the dual, mutually reinforcing relationship between corporate anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) systems and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks.Based on a synthesis of theoretical and practical knowledge, this study proposes an interactive model of sustainable compliance management