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Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - According to business ethicists, entrepreneurs should use the corona crisis as an opportunity to realign.

"Solidarity is the keyword of the hour - also in business," said Hendrik Müller, business ethicist at the Fresenius University in Hamburg, the German press agency.

“Companies should use the time to rethink and revise their business models or, if allowed, offer creative solutions such as collecting ordered goods.

Locking the shop and waiting for the state aid to flow is not enough, ”said Müller.

As in every crisis, there are winners and losers.

While online retail is booming, many small retailers are struggling to survive.

The state is trying to cushion the corona low with billions in aid.

Should the companies help each other more?

“Surrendering the strong companies to the weak sounds too good to be true,” says Müller.

"But there is another way of solidarity: For example, successful companies can make their infrastructure available to smaller retailers."

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Irina Kummert, President of the Ethics Association of German Business, thinks it is difficult to distinguish between winners and losers in a crisis.

«Economic activities are always cyclical.

Sometimes some are better off, sometimes the other, ”said Kummert in an interview with the German Press Agency in Frankfurt.

“There are business models that fit better than others into certain global circumstances that can change again.

And then I wonder if it would actually be a good idea to introduce a kind of industry solo. "

If companies in certain industries want to support each other on a voluntary basis, "that could be a good idea," said Kummert.

"But I don't think imposed solidarity makes sense."

In Kummert's view, the starving retail trade in the cities could be better helped in other ways: “I think we should rather develop ideas on how we can get people off the computer and get them to go shopping in the city centers.

I would rather rely on that than on the effectiveness of moral appeals to online retailers, ”said Kummert.

"One could support the demand in the cities, for example, by applying different VAT rates: a lower one for shopping in the store, a higher one for deliveries."

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The Hamburg business ethicist Müller emphasized: "From an ethical as well as an economic point of view, it is desirable that the losers do not fall by the wayside."

The competition must be maintained.

“Even the big ones have an interest in the small retailer on the corner continuing to exist,” said Müller.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210120-99-96141 / 2

Ethics Association of German Business

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