Both, actually. It doesn't even have to be a conscious choice; if you had every CEO make business decisions at random, those companies that made themselves more competitive would still thrive, while the others would die.
Those who keep sacrificing values tend to outcompete the ones who don't, and so the values end up being sacrificed regardless of however humans rationalize it to themselves while making decisions.
[Yes it's literally a false dichotomy, I think my meaning is clear though.]