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Explores the possibility and probability of a Catholic‐Evangelical alliance within the US social arena. Notes the numerical strength and systemic importance of each tradition. Examines the histories, tenets, politics, economic teachings and lifestyles of the two respective orientations. Cites their legacy of mutual hostility as well as the more recent ecumenical ventures. Focuses on the relevancy of the Vatican II Council to their dialogue and enumerates their contemporary differences and similarities. Concludes optimistically that theology and politics have forged stranger coalitions.

In previous efforts I have indicated that Social Catholicism, qua Roman‐Catholic Social Economycs or Économie politique chrétienne, is now at the one and a half century mark, given its formal introduction with the publication of Charles de Coux's Essais d' économie politique at Paris/Lyon in 1832. This was soon to be followed by Alban de Villeneuve‐Bargemont's Christian Political Economy, or Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Poverty in France and Europe, etc, (1837), the subsequent founding of the Société d'Economie Sociale in 1856 and publication — inter alia — of La réforme sociale (1864) and Exposition of Social Economics (1867) by P. G. Frédéric Le Play; and, contemporarily, by the separate but related efforts of a host of other “thinkers and doers” to both the left or more radical (“Catholic/Christian‐Socialist”) and the right or “individualist” (cum Christianised individuals!) of Le Play's more centrist‐traditional (and, hence, “reactionary”) position. All this was well prior to the promulgation of the first great social encyclical, Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (RN), in 1891.

In previous efforts I have dated the birth of (modern) Social Catholicism (alias: Roman‐Catholic Social Economycs) with the publication of the closely associated works of Charles de Coux (1832) and Alban de Villeneuve‐Bargemont (1834/37). If indeed (and without going all the way back to Jesus of Nazareth, via Thomas Aquinas, Jerome and Ambrose et al.) that be the case, and the implication of the present assignment be correct, then we should have to date the “birth of solidarism” in the Social‐Catholic vein identically. Undaunted by Gide's virtual declaration that “they were all solidarists then”, this is what we set out to show, viz. that our Solidarism did have its birth therewith.

Explores the relevance of the nineteenth century Russian Christian‐mystical philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev, to the contemporary world. Demonstrates that his thought proved a harbinger of many of the concerns of the present. Breaking with the orthodoxies of the nineteenth century, Soloviev explored such questions as ecumenicalism, incarnational/ developmental mysticism, feminism, and social justice. He advocated a reformed, flexible, aesthetically aware Christianity unimagined by his contemporaries. Notes Soloviev′s relationship with Western and Eastern traditionality and his strategy for the reconciliation of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. In essence, argues for the significance of the contribution of Vladimir Soloviev.

This paper aims to focus on business education, which should not exclude strains of religious ethical traditions, e.g. Catholic social thought, and the practical wisdom embodied in them.

Recent traditions of social Catholicism starting from the Papal Social Message Rerum Novarum (1891) are summarized. Consequences for management development are drawn.

The recent tradition of social Catholicism developed as a result of a broad cultural process of adaptation of Christians to the emerging social context of a modern society. New types of ethical orientation have been developed, sometimes in strong opposition to contemporary ideological concepts such as socialism, materialism, or elitist capitalism. Even in the globalized environment of the twenty‐first century these orientations are of continuing relevance, e.g. in organizational behavior, in business and society relations, and in basic concepts of corporate responsibility.

Religious ethical traditions embody elements of “practical wisdom” that are threatened by extinction in the global practice of management development. The current financial and economic crisis – also addressed in a recent document of Pope Benedict XVI – should also be perceived in that perspective.

A business ethics evaluation of Social Catholicism and its practical wisdom is executed.

Family businesses must be examined within the cultural contexts in which they are bred, nourished, and grown. According to Chrisman, Chua, and Steier (2003), family businesses are launched for reasons other than the desire for dollars and cents (or rupees and yen). In fact, the authors note, “Family businesses… bring together so starkly the economic and non-economic realities of organizational life…” (2003, p. 442). Calls for family business research that extend beyond traditional geographical boundaries to include global comparisons have been issued by Hoy (2003) and others. Fortunately, recent developments in cultural assessment and measurement methodology have provided tools to enable a better understanding of families and family businesses vis-à-vis the use of regional clusters and comparative lenses (Gupta & Hanges, 2004). Gupta and Hanges (2004) note three clusters of the Catholic ethic: Southern (or Latin) Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. As shown in Table 1, more than three-fourths of the population in these clusters follows the Catholic faith. In this study, we examine the spirit of family business in these three clusters.

The second decade of the twenty-first century finds Brazil racked by a series of scandals that are extreme even by world standards. This chapter presents an explanation for one of the behaviors that have produced these scandals. Specifically, it is the offering of bribes to public officials by individuals or companies that stand to benefit from contracts to perform public services and, furthermore, the paying of kickbacks to the officials if the contract is awarded. I liken this behavior to the making of vows to the saints in the “popular” or “folk” form of Catholicism – and other popular religions that accept its basic premises – and the fulfillment of the promise if and when the otherworldly being provides what the petitioner requested. Part 1 of the chapter examines an election for mayor of the city of Fortaleza in 2012 in which the office was “bought” for what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of money. I hypothesize that this is to be explained by the anticipation of the city receiving government contracts to build a soccer stadium, a rail system, and other projects related to the 2014 World Cup. In Part 2, I examine Brazil’s religions beginning with popular Catholicism, to show that the normative way of gaining something desired from a supernatural – be it the restoration of health or the recovery of a lost item – is to offer it something it values and then fulfilling the promise if and when the petitioner receives what was requested. I contend that this important religious pattern continues to provide the template for the secular behavior that is being judged to be corrupt by standards other than those found in the religiously based worldview of many Brazilians.

This paper aims to investigate whether religiosity and religious diversity affect the adoption of sustainability reporting assurance (SRA) by companies based in predominantly Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. To this aim, a theoretical framework is developed using the social norm, signalling and agency theories.

A pooled logit regression model is applied on a sample of 2,541 firm-year observations collected from the most sustainable companies in Europe in the period between 2004 and 2015 to test the effect of religiosity on SRA adoption. Different analyses are used to check for the robustness of the findings and a generalized method of moments (GMM) is used to address potential endogeneity issues.

The results of this study show that companies based in highly religious countries are more likely to adopt SRA practices to show compliance with the religious social norms of their stakeholders. The results also show that companies based in predominantly Roman Catholic countries are more likely to adopt SRA practices than those operating in Protestant countries. This may be due to the fact that the structural organization of Catholicism is based on a vertical, top-down control system, which does not foster trust and requires constant assurance. This explains the emphasis placed on SRA by stakeholders adhering to Catholicism. Stakeholders from Protestant countries, on the other hand, tend to rely more on the principles of social ethics and social mutual control that characterize their doctrine and, therefore, do not need any additional, external assurance of corporate commitment to sustainability.

This paper provides new insights into the influence that religiosity and religious diversity have on SRA. This study also provides evidence on the usefulness of social norm theory for conducting empirical research into corporate practices and could set an example for future studies in this field.

There exists a rich sociological literature dealing with secularisation. Such nineteenth‐century sociologists as Weber and Durkheim and twentieth‐century sociologists as Greeley, Bellah, Berger and Wilson have contributed. Berger refers to secularisation as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols”, while Wilson defines it as “the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance”. These definitions represent the thrust of academic thinking about secularisation. Generally, social scientists interpret secularisation as the decline of religiosity — a movement from faith to reason. They cite numerous indicators of the change: decline in such areas as church attendance, praying, use of religious rites and rituals, recruitment to the church bureaucracy, church construction. Often they suggest a kind of inevitability relating to urbanisation and industrialisation. The focus of the process involves man becoming less concerned with the spiritual and more concerned with the mundane. Eventually, the spiritual becomes irrelevant; the Age of Enlightenment triumphs over the Age of Faith.