1st Edition
Spirituality and Corporate Social Responsibility Interpenetrating Worlds
Religion and spirituality have often been treated with a secular disdain by management theorists. Recently, the tide has begun to turn and there is a growing openness to cite spirituality in academic analysis and debate, and when considering issues of practical concern to those engaged in the actual business of management. This provocative book brings together a range of leading thinkers to consider the relationship between spirituality and corporate social responsibility. The book's contributors examine spirituality as an inherent dimension of corporate life even if it is only known through its absence - and through the negative consequences of this absence on people and the planet. With contributors from four continents, David Bubna-Litic has assembled a range of fascinating perspectives having their origins in traditions that include Christianity, Process Theology, Hinduism, Contemporary Buddhism, Deep Ecology, Humanism, Post-Modern and Post-Romantic Spirituality. Spirituality and Corporate Social Responsibility is a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in ways in which spirituality relates to what is or what should be driving businesses and organizations to more responsible behaviour.
Biography
David Bubna-Litic is an innovative thinker with degrees in Psychology and Commerce and Social Ecology. A Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at the University of Technology, Sydney, he teaches in the area of Sustainable Management, Organisation Theory, and Strategy. David embodies the transdisciplinary nature of the emerging new economics paradigm. An innovative educator he was the original designer of the award winning Australian Business Week program. His doctoral dissertation reformulates Buddhist Economics, drawing on postmodern thinking to develop a theory of Appreciative Economics. He is the author of many book chapters and journal articles that explore new ways of thinking about Buddhism, management and strategy and has presented numerous conference papers in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. David's research interests are transdisciplinary incorporating East-Asian thinking to form new understandings relevant to strategy, organization theory, economics and sustainability.
'Once upon a time, management was seen purely as an economically rational activity whose motives were uncluttered by other than efficient means-ends calculations. No more; a new spirituality is abroad and making inroads into what were once no-go territories of decision. This book is a significant challenge to the ethics of a disinterested management as well as a disinterested theory of its practice.' - Stewart Clegg, Director of Innovative Collaboration Alliances and Networks (ICAN), University of Technology, Sydney. 'A great read, the collection is diverse and wide-ranging, scholarly, yet readable. It raises fundamental questions about the very nature, meaning, purpose and direction of today’s organizations, and there is not a single aspect of change - and potential change - that it fails to touch in one way or another. I like the way you have brought management and non-management thinkers together, in so doing enabling you to address boundary-crossing issues in relation to the existential and philosophical, theoretical and practice dimensions of organization. At every level there is something for the organizational specialist, and some nice overlaps with other popular areas of research like staff well-being, organizational activism and consumer experience.' - S P Bate, Professor Emeritus, University College London
