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This study explores whether and how Buddhism impacts corporate cash holdings. Buddhist culture affects investors' perception of how cash is deployed and then influences corporate cash holdings. This study first examines the impact of Buddhism on corporate cash holdings and then investigates whether formal governance mechanisms such as legal institutions and institutional ownership influence the relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings.

The authors conduct empirical tests with data on Chinese listed companies between 2006 and 2019. Buddhism is measured with the natural logarithm of the number of Buddhist temples within a radius of a certain distance around a firm's headquarters. The authors adopt the OLS method to regress and take the 2SLS method, Heckman selection model and FEVD approach to address the endogeneity issue.

The results show a positive relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings. This positive relation is more prominent for firms located in regions with weak legal institutions and for firms with low institutional ownership. Further analysis shows that Buddhism works through the channel of alleviating agency problems and finally improves the value of cash to investors.

The authors’ findings have important implications. First, this study provides inspiration for incorporating the ethical values of traditional cultures, such as Buddhism, into the corporate governance system. Second, the findings imply that informal institutions can influence corporate financial decisions beyond the effect of formal institutions, suggesting that informal systems should be emphasized when dealing with business affairs in countries where legal institutions are relatively weak. Third, the results suggest the significance of encouraging research on religious culture to explore its active role in corporate governance.

This study illustrates the positive value of religious culture in advancing corporate governance by relating Buddhism to corporate cash holdings based on the explanation of investors' perception. It makes a marginal contribution to the literature that investigates the determinants of cash policies and explores the firm-level consequences of religious culture, adding to the research area of culture and corporate finance.

In recognition of the potential for Buddhism to advance sustainability, this paper aims to investigate whether Buddhism appears to be informing the sustainability practices of corporations within a particular national context. Corporate sustainability reports are used as a site of analysis.

Sixteen corporate sustainability reports from a set of sustainability award-winning corporations in Sri Lanka, a country with a strong Buddhist presence, are analysed. Evidence of Buddhist principles and values related to sustainability is sought to ascertain the extent to which Buddhism is evident in disclosures within the reports. The influence of global institutions is also considered.

Analysis reveals surprisingly little evidence of Buddhist principles and values in the corporate sustainability reports of these award-winning corporations. Sustainability reporting practices are revealed to be highly institutionalised by global influences, with the majority of the reports examined explicitly embracing global standardisation. The standardisation of corporate sustainability reporting through the pursuit of globally accepted reporting frameworks is argued to have caused a disconnect between Buddhism as a prevalent institutional force in the local culture and context and the corporate representations evident in such reporting. Potential consequences of this disconnect in relation to the ability for Buddhism to inform sustainability practices at the organisational level are considered.

The paper contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability reporting through considering whether local cultural context is represented within such reports and possible reasons and consequences.

This study aims to investigate the association between mental health and religion among Thailand’s elderly population. The role of religion and culture remains limited despite the significant number of devout followers of religions in Thailand. Thai cultural and religious contexts have a dominant and persuasive influence on the lives of Thai older adults.

Data was collected in 2018 via face-to-face interaction using a structured questionnaire by the Thailand National Statistical Office. The sample consisted of 67,454 individuals, with 13,800 elderly Thai people aged 60 years or older selected for the study.

The results showed logistic regression with the association between religious activities and mental health in the understudied context of Buddhist elderly in Thailand. The variables were significantly associated with mental health at a 95% confidence level.

The model revealed that particular demographic and socioeconomic factors (age, education and marital status) were related to mental health for older adults. Regression analysis also revealed Buddhist religious activities (giving food to monks, mediation, monkhood, New Year praying, learning Dhamma for solving life’s problems, belief in Buddhism and practicing Buddhist principles) were significantly associated with the mental health of the older adult population in Thailand.

It is often believed that the type of religion that a group of people follow (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.) can account for significant and important cultural differences, with implications for business ethics, corporate and social responsibility, and other business-related variables. The alternative view is that the cultural differences between religions are either trivial or are actually misinterpreted ethnic or national differences. The purpose of this paper is to compare and evaluate these two views.

The authors focus on Africa, the most religious region of the world, whose cultures should therefore be especially susceptible to the effect of religion. We used latest data from 100 religious groups, following 19 religions, and living in 27 countries, from the nationally representative Afrobarometer. The items in the authors’ analysis reveal cultural ideologies concerning key cultural domains, such as inclusive–exclusive society (gender equality, homophobia and xenophobia), the role of government and the role of religion in politics. These domains are related to cultural conservatism versus modernization and have clear implications for management. The authors compare the group-level effect of belonging to a certain nation to the effect of belonging to a certain religion.

A hierarchical cluster analysis produced crystal-clear national clusters, with only one of the 100 religious groups systematically clustering outside its respective national cluster. The authors did not obtain a single cross-national cluster of coreligionists. Variation between nations was far greater than between religious groups and the latter was most often statistically insignificant. A comparison of Muslims with other religions revealed that Muslims are not generally more conservative, although they do have a marginally greater tendency to be less gender egalitarian. The authors conclude that the African national environments have a much stronger impact on cultural differences than do religions. The effect of the latter, compared to the former, is negligibly small and often insignificant. Thus, they find no evidence that religions can produce a powerful discriminant effect on some of the most important elements of culture.

Non-Abrahamic religions are poorly represented in Africa. Therefore, we could not assess their effect on culture. Nevertheless, it seems that attempts to explain cultural differences in values and ideologies in terms of religious differences are misguided, even in a cultural environment where religion is very strong.

The findings could help improve executive training in cross-cultural awareness, purging it from erroneous views on the origins of cultural differences. Managers should avoid simplistic explanations of the values and ideologies of their employees in terms of their religious affiliation.

Simplistic (yet very popular) explanations of culture as a function of type of religion should be avoided in society at large, too. The idea that different religions generate different cultures is not only dubious from a scientific perspective but also socially dangerous as it may lead to religious intolerance.

This is only the second study in the history of the whole cross-cultural field that provides a multinational and multidenominational comparison of the effect of nations versus religious denominations on culture.

1. Religions are often portrayed as sources of important cultural differences.

2. We compared differences in cultural modernization between religions and between nations in Africa.

3. Variation between 27 African countries dwarfed that between 100 religious groups.

4. Practically all religious groups yielded perfectly homogeneous national clusters.

5. We did not observe a single cluster of coreligionists from different countries.

6. We conclude that nations have a strong effect on cultural differences whereas religions have a minimal effect at best.

Religions are often portrayed as sources of important cultural differences.

We compared differences in cultural modernization between religions and between nations in Africa.

Variation between 27 African countries dwarfed that between 100 religious groups.

Practically all religious groups yielded perfectly homogeneous national clusters.

We did not observe a single cluster of coreligionists from different countries.

We conclude that nations have a strong effect on cultural differences whereas religions have a minimal effect at best.

This study examines whether Confucian culture can promote enterprise total factor productivity (TFP), and it also studies how transmission mechanism works on enterprise TFP.

Based on the data of A-share listed companies on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2008 to 2019, this study measures the influence of Confucian culture on enterprise TFP by the number of Confucian academies and Confucian temples within three radius ranges of a company's registered address.

The empirical results show that Confucian culture has a positive effect on the enterprise TFP. The transmission mechanism test shows that Confucian culture can promote the TFP of Chinese enterprises through reducing agency cost, improving agency efficiency and enhancing innovation.

The findings in this study provide implications for policymakers, scholars and enterprises. The results show that Confucian culture can enhance the TFP of Chinese enterprises. Especially in emerging markets including China, the Confucian culture, as an informal institution, can effectively complement formal institutions, promoting enterprise TFP.

This study expands the literature on Confucian culture in two aspects: the influence of Confucian culture on TFP and its transmission mechanism. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to identify a link between Confucian culture and enterprise TFP.

With limited intracultural ethical research in evidence this paper contributes to the theoretical discussion of expatriate ethical acculturation. Of particular interest to this study are the ethical attitudes of subcultural groups, particularly managers, who because of overseas assignment or immigration, are operating outside their usual national location. Research was undertaken to investigate whether ethical divergence or convergence, through acculturation, exists with ex patriate managers, and over what time period. Two locations, Hong Kong and Canada, were chosen for comparative study and the results indicated an interesting dichotomy. Ethical convergence, the adopting of host country ethical values, is evident with Hong Kong Chinese expatriate managers in Canada but did not occur with North American expatriates in Hong Kong. For the expatriate Chinese manager the research findings indicate that Hong Kong Chinese managers now residing in Canada develop a unique set of ethical attitudes that are significantly different from those of local managers in Hong Kong yet also significantly different from the attitudes held by local Canadian managers. A subtle form of ethical convergence is occurring. No significant relationship was found between ethical acculturation and the length of time being an expatriate Hong Kong Chinese manager in Canada except on two issues. For these issues the longer the time spent in Canada the greater the rise in ethical attitudes. A heterogeneous group of expatriate managers in Hong Kong was also evaluated and while predicate similarities existed between expatriates from China and Macau, statistically significant differences in ethical perceptions were found between the general population of expatriate managers (i.e. American, Australasian, British etc.,) and local Hong Kong Chinese managers.

This chapter critically explores the colonial model of education in a Buddhist society in postcolonial Bangladesh, as the Buddhist value-based contemplative learning and ethical practices have been constantly challenged due to the fact that the western value-based cultural knowledge is considered for economic development. In such a context, Buddhist learners are unable to learn the social history, cultural heritage, Buddhist/social economy, and spiritual values and practices in the educational institutions. Even teachers are not trained in preparing learners for cultivation of wisdom (Paññā in Pāli) and ecocentric development of the community in the country. On the other hand, Buddhist notion of contemplative learning pedagogy believes in decolonization of the mind and reflective practice for social transformation and development of wisdom through deep meditative mind by nurturing critical dialogue as opposed to capital accumulation and greed-based society. The Buddhist pedagogical approach focuses on mindful concentration (bhavana) and ethical (sila) practice within the learning context and environment, as emancipatory ideology to promote cultural diversity instead of political and social imposition. Such mindfulness would allow both the learners and teachers to create collaborative learning opportunities for life-sustaining practice and wholesome (kusala karma) activity in the community setting. The Buddhist learning pedagogy tends to nurture nonviolence (ahimsa) in order to develop mutual respect among the diverse communities to renewing ground for mind-expanding pursuits in the learning institutions for the wellbeing of all community members in the country.

This paper aims to contribute or rekindle internal and external dialogues about the interactions, decisions and behaviour in the work environments; while also consider some critical overarching values that can help workforce members cope with the stress and pressure, which augment as the speed of life increases.

The methodology used in this project is an integrative literature review, supported by, findings and reflections from two doctoral dissertations: one in workplace spirituality and one in Buddhist psychology; and the researcher’s analysis and joint application of these two streams over the past decade.

Workplace spirituality and Buddhist psychology share overlapping, multi-interpretable traits, with as the main discrepancies that workplace spirituality is a relatively new concept, while Buddhist psychology has been around for more than 2,500 years; and workplace spirituality focusses only on the workplace, while Buddhist psychology focusses on every area of the life. Yet, the overarching notion of doing right while respecting and accepting others and aiming for an overarching better quality of life remains a strong driver in both realms.

This paper will hopefully entice future researchers to engage in additional studies on spiritual intersections to expand on such databases and enhance awareness, acceptance and implementation amongst scholars and practitioners in business settings.

Exploring intersections of behavioural disciplines such as workplace spirituality and Buddhist psychology addresses an important need within workforce members and therewith also those within their social circles, as they evoke deeper and consistent contemplation on the aspects that connect us together and can enhance overall well-being and happiness at a greater magnitude than, this study experiences it today.

The study aims to deliver a contribution to the database of awareness-enhancing literature, in an effort to help spawn dialogue and critical thinking about the attitudes and behaviours towards ourselves, others and the future.

This paper presents an overview of themes in two psychological streams, both focussing on living and acting with greater consciousness, to make more mindful decisions, improve the overall experience of cooperating towards a common good and understand the responsibility towards creating a future that will be sustainable rather than destroyed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate educational functions of the World Heritage Site by examining the case of cultural tourism in a Japanese Buddhist temple.

Japan accepted the World Heritage Convention in 1992. “Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara” were decided to be listed on the World Cultural Heritage in 1998. It was composed of buildings, monuments and related cultural landscape, including five Buddhist temples and one Shinto shrine. Among them, the Gango-ji, focused in this paper, is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan.

It has been keeping many cultural properties related to the folk religious practice and providing many activities for the local community. The material culture of folk-belief is now preserved in a building in the temple yard. And there is an exhibition room. The main hall and the exhibition room are the important facilities for social education, where the visitors can watch and touch the real materials. According to the staffs of the temple, the tourists had better stay in the main hall after 1 h study at the exhibition room.

Heritage is a process of the contemporary people engaging in the usage of past as resources. The buildings as the tangible heritage used by the present community are combined with the actions as the intangible heritage of the people who preserve the heritage. The temporal tourists are also permitted to enjoy the process as participants. They can learn many things through their experiences at the heritage site.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between spirituality and corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a Buddhist perspective. The paper addresses critical issues in CSR and highlights how the concept of Buddhist skilful means can be applied to tackle such issues. Skilful means is highlighted among various Buddhist concepts because it represents a context-sensitive and practical approach that can be effectively applied in CSR practice.

The paper reviews scholarly conversations on the challenges faced by CSR in contemporary business management and justifies the application of Buddhist principles, especially skilful means, to tackle such issues. The paper draws upon a wide range of Buddhist teachings and Sutras to propose a Buddhist skilful means approach to CSR.

Studies show that CSR is a highly contextualised term. Its definition and implementation differ in various contexts. Buddhism is set apart from other religions by its flexibility in practice and contextualisation. Further, the non-attachment that sits at the heart of the skilful means allows the exploration of different CSR practices to respond effectively to local contexts.

The paper proposes practical means for CSR practices adopted from a number of Buddhist qualities and principles in response to challenges for the practice of CSR.

Buddhist concepts have yet to be discovered or included in major scholarly conversations because of their contradiction of some well-known Western concepts and theories. Skilful means, including the principle of non-attachment, is a Buddhist approach. This paper argues that skilful means is a good fit with CSR as it has practical applications that can address issues identified in relation to CSR and organisational management practices.