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Religion could drive development. Although Ghana is touted as the most religious country in the world, notably, some Charismatic/Pentecostal churches operate at the expense of community development and members’ welfare. This study sought to achieve three objectives: to determine whether there is an opportunity for organizing the various churches for interfaith cooperative collective action; to assess the association between people’s religiosity and the propensity to join interfaith cooperative collective action and to assess people’s perceptions of the institutional framework that could facilitate the organization of the religious community in Ghana for interfaith collective action.

Descriptive statistics and an ordered probit model (OPM) were used to analyze cross-sectional data from a representative sample of households in the Greater Accra Region. Thematic analysis was also used to analyze the qualitative data.

The study found that generally, there is a positive response to a proposal to mobilize churches in an interfaith cooperative collective action, but distrust poses a great threat to interfaith cooperative collective action. The study also found that affiliation with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and Pentecostal/Charismatic is negatively (positively) associated with the propensity to join a collective action, respectively. Finally, the results of the study found that accountability, proper management and fair distribution of the proceeds from a collective action will help in mobilizing churches in Ghana in an interfaith collective action.

This is the first major study to explore the possibility of interfaith collective action among religious denominations aimed at accelerating poverty reduction and wealth creation in any developing country.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2023-0670

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.

Religious organizations are among the non-government groups in the USA that are addressing climate change phenomena from their various faith perspectives and, despite the differences in their traditions and practices, are collaborating with one another to achieve their mutual goal – the establishment of policies that will mitigate the real and anticipated perils scientists are forecasting. If sufficiently motivated by their faith, informed by climate science, and politically astute, these groups may be reliable allies for climate change decision-makers to tap as they strive to achieve their mutual goal. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Focusing on the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, and Interfaith Power and Light, the author explores the diverse religious faith-based motivations underpinning their efforts, the extent to which they remain cognizant of the latest climate science, the structures through which they share their particular faith perspectives and collaborate with one another, and their efforts to reach decision makers at various levels of governance.

Motivated by their religious faiths, these three organizations demonstrate that they are scientifically informed, politically astute, and collaborative with others in striving to achieve their mutual goal of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change locally to globally.

The three groups on which the author focuses are based in the USA and collaborate with one another. In an earlier presentation prepared for an international conference, the author included two other groups outside the USA, but manuscript length precluded their inclusion in this submission. Perhaps the author's limited study will stimulate scholars to explore other groups in various parts of the world.

To assure and strengthen the momentum already underway, scholars of religions need to probe their foundations for responding to climate change, leaders of religious communities must heighten their efforts to educate their followers accordingly, adherents of religions must be open to embracing their motivating traditions, and religiously based groups must seek to collaborate with one another at various bioregional and political levels to demand actions that will advance a life-sustaining climate.

The author is unaware of studies exploring these three groups using the methodology the author employs for the purposes of describing and assessing the effectiveness of religious groups in addressing human-forced climate change.

In times of deep political and religious division and limited resources, the need for developing leadership that influences and heals our communities is particularly critical. Using service- learning, combined with community engaged scholarship, this pedagogical approach enhanced student transformation, involved and benefited the community growing together, and explored potential contributions to literature in servant leadership. The collaboration involved designing and planning a three-hour event and data collection to address combatting hate and creating greater compassion. Student, faculty, and community worked together in this independent project and reflections indicate significant efficacy of servant leadership in the interfaith community with actionable and accessible outcomes.

A growing religious-environmental movement is working to reconcile environmental thought and practice with the mission and ministry of religious organizations. We examine two leading interfaith social change organizations and identify key strategies they routinely employ to create shared meaning and alignment between environmentalism and faith. They reframe stewardship in religious organizations by (1) highlighting and interpreting environmental themes in sacred texts and scriptures, (2) celebrating and fostering mutual awareness of environmental action by faith-based organizations, and (3) providing resources and creating linkages between clergy and lay leaders across religious congregations. By emphasizing moral and spiritual rationales for the adoption of resource-saving products and behaviors at both the congregational and household level, these networked organizations help shift the perception of global climate change from an insurmountable problem to one that is being addressed in cooperation with similar others. Our investigation reveals organizational actors deeply engaged in growing moral calls for political action to address climate change and underscores the need for more socially realistic models of technology adoption and behavior change.

This study aims to demonstrate al-Biruni’s originality in the study of religion and the exploration of religious truth, while his firm stance on his religion effectively advocated his need to understand others more accurately.

This study is a review of al-Biruni’s literature that uses content analysis method in establishing al-Biruni’s approach in understanding other religions through three main methodologies. From these approaches, this paper advocates al-Biruni’s firm stance toward his own faith despite using a scientific study on Hindu, which is in contrary to other phenomenological scholars who find that religious truth is relative in nature.

Al-Biruni’s methods have proven that researchers are not necessarily required to dispose off their religious identity and commitment to faith, while simultaneously achieving objectivity and accuracy. Al-Biruni’s approach to understanding others may be seen as a remarkable early model of interfaith, intercultural and inter-civilizational dialogue seeking, eventually, to promote a harmonious co-existence within a highly polarized cultural and religious context. This inquiry demonstrates al-Biruni’s scholarly depth in his attempt to harmonize his methodology with the study of religious phenomena in compliance with Islam.

This study signifies al-Biruni’s intellectual background with his mastery of first-hand information as a solid basis and grounds for the effective understanding of others in a descriptive, systematic and comparative manner. This paper also signifies al-Biruni’s methods of understanding others without having to dispose off one’s religious identity and commitment to faith which could be exemplified by other religious scholars.

In turbulent times like these, practical wisdom from the religious and spiritual traditions can provide new grounding. In the Christian tradition, practical wisdom can be derived from exegesis of New Testament texts. Text exegesis can be integrated in executive education/formation, even in secular settings. This paper aims to discuss the issues.

A symbolic narrative method is applied to demonstrate how practical wisdom can be discerned from religious texts. Transposed to an interfaith or secular environment, the use of exegesis in executive formation is explained based on Winnicott's theory of transitional objects.

Christian social ethics could be enriched by a renewed interest in wisdom that sources itself in biblical exegesis. This interdisciplinary paper explores the nature of practical wisdom as inspired by biblical exegesis applying a symbolic‐narrative method. This method is applied within the context of a humanistic Christology that reveals the wisdom of Jesus in his human capacity. This is illustrated by the exegesis of the New Testament text “The feeding of the five thousand”. In a conclusion and outlook the value of interfaith text exegesis in management education in a secular context is explored based on the personal experience of the author in executive formation.

Interdisciplinarity combined with methodological rigor in a biblical approach to practical wisdom is highlighted in the paper.

Promoting a “Culture of Peace” has always been one of the ultimate goals in the provision of education around the world, including Thailand. The concept of Education for International Understanding (EIU) has thus been developed since the “Peace Movements” following the 20th century’s world wars. Initially, the field encompassed peace education, international education, human rights education, citizenship education, and development education. Gradually, it has become an interdisciplinary, and multidimensional field of study encompassing other related themes including disarmament education, nonviolence education, education for conflict resolution, antidiscrimination education, gender equity education, multicultural education, global education, education for international cooperation, education for dialogue of civilizations, education for interfaith dialogue, values education, environmental education, education for sustainable development, and education for inner or personal peace. Moreover EIU, which formerly focused on the “international” dimension, is now concerned just as much with issues and problems “within” (intra) societies. This chapter examines the development of the concept and the implementation of EIU-related themes in Thai policies and curriculum. Survey research was conducted before and after the major political crisis starting in 2008. Survey questions include ability to identify national policy relating to EIU, perceptions concerning the objectives in implementing EIU and values highlighted within an EIU framework, teaching methods, experiences in studying/participating in EIU-related courses/activities, and problems in studying/participating in EIU activities. Some results from the study in 2007 are presented and compared with findings from following studies in 2010, 2012, and 2014.