ENThe paper enquires into the problems a society faces during the transitional period. It is proved that positive transformation of a society objectively requires implementing business ethics standards into all fields of practice. It also indicates obstacles the society has to overcome while implementing business ethics in practice, trying to introduce ethical standards into various spheres of business. The authors present the results of researches conducted by the Center for Business Ethics, a scientific unit of Vilnius University. The research presents public attitudes towards ethics standards. It is argued in the paper that it is necessary to reconstruct existing attitudes and to promote the standards of business ethics mainly through formation of appropriate understanding of the value of compliance.