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This chapter focuses on diversity issues in France. It shows how these issues came historically in the French context and how the main tensions generated, notably the equality-diversity and universality-diversity tensions, are not understandable without a knowledge of the French Republicanism which gives to the foundations of the French social fabric its peculiarities.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the current cultural and theological debate on secularism and atheism, and evaluate the debate with reference to recent sources on secularism and atheism.

Reference and popular works in academic/research and public libraries were examined with reference to the wider historiography of discussion about faith and belief and unbelief.

Academic and popular commentary on faith and belief and unbelief, which appears to operate in two distinct strands (faith/belief and faith/unbelief), is, after confrontations with “New Atheism”, converging and teasing out ways towards inclusive spirituality.

Theological and divinity studies are opening up their inquiry to new cultural and epistemological models, fusions of traditional scriptural and interpretative approaches that more closely reflect post-Christian thinking. These transitions are reflected in reference and popular publications about faith and belief and unbelief, and are of interest to collection developers in libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to draw a map of the general features of epistemological and critical concerns in contemporary Islamic philosophy. This study will not be confined to the domain of academic philosophy or to those who are professionals in the field of philosophy.

The paper adopted the critical rational approach in dealing with contemporary Islamic philosophy in the Arab world. The scope will include scholars from different fields of epistemology who tried to present a “vision” of the attitude that should be adopted in facing the challenges of the age and the problems of the nation on the epistemological level or the political, economic and social levels.

There is a need for a philosophy of action and progress rather than a philosophy that is based on abstract ideas and theories and of words/rhetoric. The ethics required to accomplish this ought to identify the attributes of the citizen who can reach self-actualization through legitimate means based on a progress agenda with theoretical and philosophical foundations.

Because a critical rational approach can be dealt with from different perspectives, this paper will adopt the classification of the principal intellectual trends: the reformist, secular and liberal.

This paper covers a long time span to determine whether the philosophical projects have been effective.

This paper, which criticizes the philosophic projects that are theoretically unsound and that do not address real social problems (like poverty), argues the need for a philosophy of progress and action. This will lead to devising an agenda that addresses the challenges the society is facing and to finding alternative and creative solutions resulting in development.

Bringing spiritual and religious perspectives to management and organization research requires clarifying the methodological implications and grappling with the diversity that characterizes the research community. This article aims to address both of these issues. The focal question addressed here is, how might spiritual and religious researchers effectively engage in interfaith dialogue in the ostensibly secular field of management and organization studies?

This article takes exception to privileging secularism over other faiths and argues for admitting spiritual and religious perspectives into the field of management and organization studies. It addresses how theological reflection can be carried out within a spiritually and religiously pluralist research community in management and organization studies.

Section 2 characterizes secularity and raises the possibility of moving beyond secularism to interfaith dialogue in the field of management and organization studies. Section 3 reviews influential perspectives on dialogue to identify attitudes and behaviors conducive to social learning. Section 4 introduces theological reflection as a method for conducting management and organization research and provides guidance and methods for pursuing interfaith dialogue.

This article proposes interfaith dialogue as a way to explore important assumptions, ultimate concerns and innovative practices that currently go largely unraised in management and organization research.

This article adds to the methods available in the field by characterizing effective dialogue and introducing and explaining theological reflection. It contributes general guidance and proposes specific methods for moving to interfaith dialogue among researchers working from diverse faiths.

This research aims to explain, in the secular French context, the intention of managers to accommodate religious expression at work (REW) when they are not obliged to do so. This paper seeks to understand the determinants of managerial positions on REW. Building on previous studies on how organisations and managers deal with religious expression, this research seeks to extend the evidence on this important aspect of managerial behaviour in relation to accommodating REW.

The hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in diversity management (N = 151 French managers). This method highlights attitudinal and organisational determinants favourable to the intent to accommodate.

The present research provides new insight by identifying two main direct factors affecting managers' accommodation, namely, organisational flexibility (flexible hours, autonomy) and perceived consequences (advantages, disadvantages) and one indirect factor, religiosity. In line with the contradictions within diversity management, the perceived consequences are ambivalent and highly context dependent. One issue to explore is that managers seek to deal with religious expression by making it invisible.

In the French context, the explanatory social norm might not be “religiosity” but rather “perceived secularity”. The authors recommend that future studies use qualitative methods with interviews and photo elicitation to extend this first study. Indeed, the complexity of the managerial position requires an in-depth understanding of managers' attitudes and behaviours with regard to religion. How do managers apply a common ground strategy and create unity despite differences? Is the desire to make arrangements invisible with a view to inclusive neutrality specific to France, or can it be generalised to managers in other countries? Does the intention to accommodate not essentially depend on the manager-employee relationship dynamic? This research raises questions for scholars about the relationship with the other and ethical managerial conduct.

France is a secular country where a debate is emerging on cases of discrimination due to REW. The results contribute to approaches to drafting company guidelines for managers and may help organisations anticipate the risks associated with REW. The discussion of the results reveals the importance of social norms in the sense of hypernorms (religiosity) and undoubtedly of secularism, nondiscrimination and gender equality in the decision-making process on accommodation. These inclusive norms should therefore be handled with care in the various guidelines that have been developed.

REW is increasing but is a neglected dimension of diversity management. This study helps explore this new field by promoting an understanding of managers' intention to accommodate in a specific secular context.

Injections of foreign direct investment (FDI) are often followed by injections of foreign culture which may not be well received among the local population. If this is the case, culture may impede any positive externalities from FDI. On the other hand, if the people of the host country embrace injections of FDI, this may lead to boosts in not only short-run factors of production but also longer-term technological spillovers. We measure what role cultural make-up of a country plays on the effect of FDI on growth in GDP.

Using values system data from the World Values Survey (WVS), and socioeconomic data from the World Bank, we estimate and plot the marginal effect of FDI on growth as a function of a country's values system for a panel of 73 countries over a span of three decades.

We find that the marginal effect of FDI on growth in GDP differs across varying degrees of cultural values, even after adjusting for level of development. In other words, our analysis indicates that a country's cultural norms do indeed affect foreign investment's impact on economic growth.

To date there is no research that systematically assesses the effect that cultural make-up has on the marginal effect of FDI on growth. We go beyond the use of isolated cultural variables by using data on cultural dimensions that account for most of the observed cultural differences between countries. We believe our findings will work as a launchpad for more novel ways to capture country heterogeneity in growth research.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2019-0549.

In 1967, Robert N. Bellah famously argued that there existed an “American Civil Religion,” which was distinct from churchly religion and captured the “transcendental” dimension of the American project. In this chapter, I revisit the civil religion concept and reconstruct it along more Weberian lines. Specifically, I argue that the civil religion tradition is one of three competing traditions for thinking about the proper relationship between religion and politics in America; the other two are religious nationalism and liberal secularism. Whereas liberal secularism envisions a complete separation of the religious and political value spheres, and religious nationalism longs for their (re)unification, civil religion aims for a mediating position of partial separation and productive tension. Following Bellah, I argue that the two central strands of the civil religion tradition have been covenant theology and civic republicanism. The body of the chapter sketches out the development of the tradition across a series of national foundings and refoundings, focusing on the writings of leading civil theologians from John Winthrop and John Adams through Abraham Lincoln and John Dewey to Martin King and Barack Obama. The conclusion advances a normative argument for American civil religion – and against liberal secularism and religious nationalism. I contend that liberalism is highly inclusive but insufficiently solidaristic; that religious nationalism is highly solidaristic but insufficiently inclusive; and that only civil religion strikes a proper balance between individual autonomy and the common good.

In 1967, Robert N. Bellah famously argued that there existed an “American Civil Religion,” which was distinct from churchly religion and captured the “transcendental” dimension of the American project. In this chapter, I revisit the civil religion concept and reconstruct it along more Weberian lines. Specifically, I argue that the civil religion tradition is one of three competing traditions for thinking about the proper relationship between religion and politics in America; the other two are religious nationalism and liberal secularism. Whereas liberal secularism envisions a complete separation of the religious and political value spheres, and religious nationalism longs for their (re)unification, civil religion aims for a mediating position of partial separation and productive tension. Following Bellah, I argue that the two central strands of the civil religion tradition have been covenant theology and civic republicanism. The body of the chapter sketches out the development of the tradition across a series of national foundings and refoundings, focusing on the writings of leading civil theologians from John Winthrop and John Adams through Abraham Lincoln and John Dewey to Martin King and Barack Obama. The conclusion advances a normative argument for American civil religion – and against liberal secularism and religious nationalism. I contend that liberalism is highly inclusive but insufficiently solidaristic; that religious nationalism is highly solidaristic but insufficiently inclusive; and that only civil religion strikes a proper balance between individual autonomy and the common good.