The “dangerous obsession” of competitiveness into a more and more globalized world and knowledge-based economy brings with it new opportunities and threats for firm’s strategic management. By this paper we will stop at one of the major challenges firms are confronted with: the shift from tangible to intangible factors of competitive advantage, and particularly on how business ethics can be such a key asset for a firm – based on two economic reasons: the need to cooperate and the stakeholders theory applied to business.