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This paper examines the limitations on monetary profit maximization assumption in Quaker businesses, historically one of England's most successful set of business people. This view challenges the central theoretical assumptions of management and strategic entrepreneurship by demonstrating the influence of religious institutional logic over the profit maximization drive in business.

Using a historical analysis of Quaker religious institutional logic, the authors demonstrate how Quakers’ religious logic of simplicity in lifestyle and equality of all people led, in turn, to actions by Quaker businesses that limited the monetary profit maximizing for their businesses. Such actions are consistent with the Quakers’ belief that linked their business activities to their religious beliefs.

The present analysis shows that English Quakers had specific beliefs, enforced by the group’s willingness to expel members that limited monetary profit maximization among Quaker businesses. Thus, the authors challenge the typical assumptions of business scholars by demonstrating that business entities can succeed economically even when they do not embrace profit maximization as their core element. This paradoxical finding has the potential to significantly expand management and strategic entrepreneurship theory.

The authors discuss how religious logic can replace profit maximization as a foundation for business. This insight enriches not only the understanding of business but also of religious institutional logic. Finally, the authors address the call for greater use of historical analysis in the management literature.

The importance of networks has been established in the development of commerce and capitalism, with key concepts reflecting both the dynamic and permeable characteristics of networks. Such attributes are exemplified by religious networks, which have been typically dismissed in terms of economic contribution as being both risk-averse and bounded by ethical barriers imposed by theology. This paper aims to examine the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the long 18th century to evidence the multi-plexity and density of connections and suggest that adherence to the Quaker discipline acted as a trust-based attribute and substituted for repeated iteration.

The archival investigation centres upon an analysis of “The Catalogue of Quaker Writing” and a close re-reading of the seminal text “Quakers in Science and Industry”, an authoritative account of Quaker firms and families in industry and commerce. By identifying multiple possible social network connections in Raistrick’s work, this paper reviewed and analysed The Catalogue of Quaker Writing to examine the presence or absence of these connections in the Quaker network in the long 18th century.

This paper shows how the Quaker network was an unusually dense network that benefited co-religionists by enabling commerce through its unique topography. In a period characterized by the absence of formal institutional mechanisms to regulate behaviour, Quaker discipline acted as a quasi-regulatory mechanism to regulate membership of the network and to govern member moral behaviour.

The Quakers offer an opportunity to examine an early modern network to gain important insights into key aspects of network topography. By using social network analysis, this paper shows how Quakers performed a multiplicity of roles, which encouraged multiple modes of contact between members of the society in a dense network of contexts, which, in turn, provided high levels of connectedness between individuals. This unique range of roles, shared among a relatively small group of individuals, ensured that the degrees of separation between roles were very few; similarly, the plethora of connections resulted in a density, which not only allowed for multiple ways to engage with other individuals but also ensured no individual would become a bottle-neck or indeed a gateway that would prevent access. This unique topography was also highly unusual in that it was permeable to any aspirant member upon acceptance of the discipline – neither poverty nor lack of social status was barriers to membership. This unusual network offered atypical commercial advantages for its members.

Boards are a central feature in any discussion of corporate governance. Following the adoption of corporate governance principles in the public sector and the non‐profit sector, boards have become a central feature of these entities too. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the adoption of the Charities Act 2006 on the governance structure of the Quakers and on its organisational life.

The paper adopts an ethnographic approach, using a case study of the Quakers to show the effects of the Charities Act 2006 on the governance structure of a religious charity.

It is argued that the Quakers have had to transform a governance structure developed to support their beliefs and practices focussed on socializing forms of accountability to one emphasising individualizing forms of accountability.

This study highlights the lack of debate on the adoption of corporate governance structures to non‐profit entities through a case study. The findings also show that the Charities Act 2006 has an impact on charities beyond financial accountability.

This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.

The research employs a case study approach and draws on the extensive archives of Quaker industrialists in the Richardson family networks, British Parliamentary Papers and the Religious Society of Friends together with relevant contemporary and current literature.

Friends shed their position as Enemies of the State and obtained status and accountabilities undifferentiated from those of non-Quakers. The reciprocal influences of an increasingly complex business environment and radical changes in religious beliefs and practices combined to shift accountabilities from the Quaker Meeting House to newly established legal accountability mechanisms. Static Quaker organisation structures and accountability processes were ineffective in a rapidly changing world. Decision-making was susceptible to the domination of the large Richardson family networks in the Newcastle Meeting House. This research found no evidence of Quaker corporate social accountability through action in the Richardson family networks and it questions the validity of this concept. The motivations underlying Quakers’ personal philanthropy and social activism were multiple and complex, extending far beyond accountabilities driven by religious belief.

This research has originality and value as a study of continuity and change in Quaker accountability regimes during a period that encompassed fundamental changes in Quakerism and its orthopraxy, and their business, social and political environments.

This paper aims to offer a new history of management by tracing a religious dimension of scientific management. The thesis is that the good was foundational for bringing scientific management to success in Taylor’s native Quaker Philadelphia in the 1880s. The paper’s main contribution is to contrast the philosophical origins of Taylor’s ideas in scientific management to his native Quaker roots, and how Taylor, over time, into the 1910s, wrestled with this issue.

The paper is situated in historical interpretivism and subjectivism, leaning on contextual and narrative research on religious morality.

Quaker morality prevented managerial opportunism at Taylor’s Midvale Steel in the 1880s. Conversely, by the 1900s and 1910s, interest conflicts between workers and managers escalated when scientific management moved out of its traditional cultural contexts of Quaker Philadelphia and spread across the USA. The historical implication is, already for Taylor’s time, that scientific management never was the “one-best way” of management.

Future research needs to deepen and broaden research on scientific management when tracing the significance of religion and culture in management thought.

The paper has implications for modern studies of business morality by uncovering the practical relevance of religious business ethics at the outset of management studies.

The historic emergence of scientific management points to a theory of institutional evolution and economic growth, when religiously grounded governance of the firm deinstitutionalized, and institutional economic governance, with different but superior economic advantages, progressed by the 1900s.

The paper suggests an alternative version of the intellectual heritage of management studies by tracing the legacy of Taylor’s Quakerism and how religious and cultural ideas contributed to the formation of science in management.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

This paper aims to introduce an analytical focus on an individual’s integrative thinking capacity to further understand integrated thinking within the organisation. Integrated thinking is an elusive concept, gaining in prominence through its use by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), without specific guidance or a commonly understood framework. To date, the academic debate on integrated thinking addresses the organisational level only. However, thinking is a process occurring within the mind of an individual and therefore the prerequisites for integrated thinking at the individual level needs to be considered. Critical reflection is, therefore, provided on the interplay between integrative and integrated thinking.

This paper draws on conceptual systems theory and case site analysis to reflect how integrative thinking can be encouraged and supported within the individual and how integrated thinking can hence be fostered within organisations.

The paper analyses and discusses four sites of integrative thinking: the Athenian democracy; the Minangkabau community; the Quakers and consensus decision-making; and the Apis Mellifera and the hive mind. The findings from these different sites illustrate that integrative thinking can be supported by specific structural, organisational and individual contexts and stimuli.

Extending the context of integrated thinking analysis outside of the organisation and analysing these sites through components of integrative thought, this article provides further insights into how integrated thinking can be fostered within different organisations. The implications of these findings for accounting and professional institutions, organisations and the ongoing professional development of accountants are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the discussion about religious organisations’ (ROs) potential to practise their faith by means of their investments, rather than keeping both issues separate.

The authors adopted a qualitative exploratory approach using seven cases of social shareholder engagement (SSE) by Christian organisations. It focused on creating knowledge from best practices.

Within the three Christian organisations studied, the authors identified three significant features that relate to their religious nature and affect their SSE: having a structured belief system, a grassroots network and a long-term perspective. These features can be instrumental in impacting company behaviour and society at large.

The authors chose three ROs for their relevance and comparative features, but this limited sample size makes it hard to generalise the research findings.

This paper invites ROs to review their potential for actively owning their shares to be consistent with their faith and create change in business and society at large. Besides, ROs, with their unwavering belief system, extensive grassroots networks and long-term approach, are a force in the shareholder engagement field to be reckoned with by business.

The paper presents multi cases of ROs active in using their investments to create change in companies and society at large.