In this article we evaluate Jesus Centered Leadership, a new concept that has emerged in the realm of spirituality and business management. JCL questions the “Christianity” of Christian business leadership, and proposes principles for ethical leadership that provide a truer representation of the teachings and traits of Jesus. We consider these principles and contribute principles of our own, thereby providing an alternative approach to JCL that remains consistent with the JCL message of morality but addresses issues that offer greater opportunities (...) for adoption within existing business and institutional models. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs often express their reliance on intuition for several types of decisions while labelling its source somewhere hidden in a black box of our mind. Such expressions leads us to the exploration of the concept of intuition in the field of spirituality as this field addresses the inner aspects of our mind. Therefore this paper embeds intuition in the domain of spirituality for understanding entrepreneurs’ use of intuition. It examines the following questions. What is spirituality? Where do the fields of (...) spirituality and entrepreneurship meet? What is the place of intuition in the literature on entrepreneurship? What could be the epistemology on intuition as part of spirituality? What is intuition? How is intuition acquired? What do people know about their intuition? How do we know what we know about intuition? What is the potential role of intuition in disciplines such as education? For understanding the concept of intuition a philosophical base has been followed, inspired by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo on types of knowledge and levels of consciousness. The use of intuition is somewhat subjective as it stems not from the analytical mind, nor the subconscious mind, but from higher consciousness. Intuition therefore has been considered as a holistic spiritual approach to facilitate entrepreneurial processes and activities through a coping style to manage external stimuli and as a core training part in the process of entrepreneurship so that it works as an internal resource in all entrepreneurial processes. (shrink)

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards (...) satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, we employ a (...) utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how faith-led practices in family firms affect organizational stewardship. Current studies highlight the relevance of religious adherence for family businesses, yet provide limited understanding of how this shapes the key traits of these organizations. Drawing on six autobiographies of family business leaders who openly express their adherence to their faith, and adopting an open-systems analysis of these autobiographies, we demonstrate that faith-led values influence organizational and leadership practices. Overall, our study suggests that (...) the influence of religious beliefs in the organizational practices of family businesses have greater repercussions than previously thought. By introducing a faith-led approach to stewardship, we enrich the theoretical discussion around stewardship and the relevance of religion in family business. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of ethics instruction, religiosity, and intelligence on cheating behavior. A sample of 230 upper level, undergraduate business students had the opportunity to increase their chances of winning money in an experimental situation by falsely reporting their task performance. In general, the results indicate that students who attended worship services more frequently were less likely to cheat than those who attended worship services less frequently, but that students who had taken a course in business ethics were (...) no less likely to cheat than students who had not taken such a course. However, the results do indicate that the extent to which taking a business ethics course influenced cheating behavior was moderated by the religiosity and intelligence of the individual student. In particular, while students who were highly religious were unlikely to cheat whether or not they had taken a business ethics course, students who were not highly religious demonstrated less cheating if they had taken a business ethics course. In addition, the extent of cheating among highly intelligent students was significantly reduced if such students had taken a course in business ethics. Likewise, individuals who were highly intelligent displayed significantly less cheating if they were also highly religious. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)