Believing at Work : modeling the interplay of religious faith and business

Believing at Work asks what difference religious faith makes in business. It suggests that professionals who infuse their work with transcendent, religious purposes may experience a shift in their mental models, which can become a marketplace advantage. This shift moves individuals from being internally focused on pursuing happiness to being externally, other-focused, driven to improve the world. In business terms, this translates to a shift from profit-centrism to Corporate Social Responsibility. While some modern theorists maintain that business' only responsibility is to maximize shareholder value, this is increasingly a minority view. In the modern, global economy, decisions by individuals and firms are widely recognized to have deep impacts the world over-not only on shareholder value, but on the environment, and on human rights. In this context, firms are finding that Corporate Social Responsibility is not only politically expedient, but strategically necessary. To effectively make this shift, firms must become more externally focused, recognizing and acting upon their potential to impact the world for good or ill.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Lanfer, Stefan Graves

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leigh Hafrey.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37232

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37232