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| Title & Author | Language | Links | Tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Ethics by David Gill |
Sample Business Ethicsby David W. Gill
Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (New York:Macmillan, 2005)
1. Introduction
“Business ethics” names both a phenomenon (“the ethics espoused and practiced in business”) and the field of study of that phenomenon (“the serious study of business ethics”). As a branch of ethics (or moral philosophy), business ethics is interested in how judgments of right and wrong, good and bad, moral obligation and responsibility, rights and duties, and the like, are made and justified. As a branch of applied ethics it explores how these judgments are carried out in a specific domain, in this case, that of work, commerce, and economic activity.
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| Accurate Weights and Measures by Peter McCaroll |
Sample IntroductionIn Larry Burkett’s Business By The Book1, he opens his chapter on “Discounting Decisions” with a case study of a car salesman. Burkett concludes the case study by quoting Proverbs 11:1 (“The LORD abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.”2) and submitting that the car salesman “has a different weight in his bag for different customers.”3
In this paper I will discuss the Biblical concept of “weights and measures,” and specifically the issue of unfair or differing weights and measures, and try to answer the question “what does it mean to use accurate weights and measures?” To do this I will identify and discuss biblical and background information in order to identify and reflect on essential principles that are contained within the biblical material.
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| Day at Work: Love-Recovering the Christian Amateur by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample LOVE: RECOVERING THE AMATEUR STATUS OF THE CHRISTIAN "To discover God in the smallest and most ordinary things, as well as in the greatest, is to possess a rare and sublime faith. To find contentment in the present moment is to relish and adore the divine will in the succession of all the things to be done and suffered which make up the duty to the present moment."
Jean-Pierre De Caussaude[i]
"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God."
Luther[ii]
"Does God work?" Willie MacMichael asks his father in George Macdonald's book for children. His father answered biblically: "Yes, Willie, it seems to me that God works more than anybody - for He works all night and all day and, if I remember rightly, Jesus tells us somewhere that He works all Sunday too. If He were to stop working, everything would stop being. The sun would stop shining, and the moon and stars; the corn would stop growing; there would be no apples and gooseberries; your eyes would stop seeing; your ears would stop hearing; your fingers couldn't move an inch; and, worst of all your little heart would stop loving." |
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| Day at Work: Hope-Making Our Mark in Heaven by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample HOPE:
MAKING OUR MARK ON HEAVEN
"How can Christianity call itself catholic if the universe itself is left out?"
Simone Weil[i]
"I cannot think of a greater tragedy than to think that I am at home on earth...."
Malcolm Muggeridge[ii]
"Only the heavenly-minded are of any earthly use."
C.S. Lewis[iii]
Years ago Leslie Newbigin said that "mankind is without any worthwhile end to which the travail of history might lead."[iv] A few believe we are heading into a new world order and paradise on earth but most people nurse a deep foreboding about the future, or refuse to think about it more than they must. The seeming resultlessness of history erodes the nerve of modern persons including, I must add, Christians who have more reason to embrace the future wholeheartedly than anyone. Whether world-weariness and future fright comes from the terrifying prospect of ecological doomsday, or, as is often the case with Christians like the Thessalonians, from the conviction that Jesus will probably come tomorrow, the result is the same for Christians: all work in this world except the so-called "ministry" is viewed as not very significant or enduring. [i]. Quoted in Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Village, Humpty Dumpty and Us (Minneapolis, Mn.: Winston Press, l979), iv. Check for original reference - footnote 3 in Fox preface. [ii]. Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered....p. [iii]. C.S. Lewis, .....p. [iv]. Leslie Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man...p. |
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| Day at Work: Faith-Discovering the Soul of Work by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:13
"We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Thessalonians 1:3
FAITH: DISCOVERING THE SOUL OF WORK LOVE: RECOVERING THE AMATEUR STATUS OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE: MAKING OUR MARK ON HEAVEN FAITH: DISCOVERING THE SOUL OF WORK "There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter (cobbler), or an apostle, all are one, as touching the deed, to please God." William Tyndale[i] "Do you like your new job?" It was a foolish question, a very Western question to ask a Kenyan. But Esther had been my student in a rural theological college in East Africa for three years. She had hoped, like the others, upon graduation to be placed as a pastor of a church. Instead she was given the enormously demanding task of being matron for three hundred girls in a boarding school. It was a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week job with little recognition and limited remuneration. So I had reason to ask. But her answer revealed a deep spirituality, one which I covet for Christians in my home country and myself. She said, "I like it in Jesus." [i]. William Tyndale, "A Parable of the Wicked Mammon," (l527) in Treatises and Portions of Holy Scripture (Cambridge: Parker Society, l848), 98, 104. |
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| Business as a Calling and Profession Part B by Gordon Preece |
Sample: Having surveyed the relatively positive biblical view of material work and clarified the difference between status wealth then and now and productive wealth, it is important to examine some of the Greek philosophical and historical factors disparaging work and business, against which Protestant notions of vocation subsequently reacted. |
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| Business as a Calling and Profession Part A by Gordon Preece |
Sample: Note: adapted from the above title in Samuel Gregg and Gordon Preece, Christianity and Entrepreneurship; Protestant and Catholic Thoughts. (St. Leonards NSW: Centre for Independent Studies, 1999) printed here with permission. All Bible references are NRSV unless noted. Introduction A retired Protestant businessman told me recently how he had once spoken about business at an Anglican church only to be told by two young men that a Christian could not possibly be engaged in such a sordid activity. They would not be alone. A large number of Protestant Christians today would be uneasy with the claim that business can be an avenue of one's Christian calling. Given the bad press that many transnational business corporations get, and some deserve, this feeling is understandable. Yet, I will argue, it is ultimately misguided, representing an amnesia about one of Protestantism's great distinctives, the doctrine of the universal calling or vocation of all believers, in whatever biblically lawful places of service these believers find themselves. |
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| Theology of Work – Executive Summary by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample Executive Summary Most of the difficulties we face in mobilising the people of God towards marketplace ministry are due to an inadequate understanding regarding the theology of work. This shortcoming basically arises out of a less-than-comprehensive theology of creation, redemption and eschatology. God the Worker God not only authored work but he himself was a worker (Gen 1, 2; Jn 5:17; Rev 21:5). Throughout the Bible, we see different images of God as a worker namely, shepherd (Psa 23), potter (Jer 18:6), physician (Matt 8: 16), teacher (Psa 143:10), vineyard-dresser (Isa 5:1-7) etc. God is as active and creative today – creating, sustaining, redeeming and consummating – as God was when this five billion light year universe was begun. |
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| Toward A More Biblical View of Matter by L.T. Jeyachandran |
"C. S. Lewis has remarked that if he had not turned to Christ from atheism, his other alternative was Hinduism. This comment is striking because he made it in the 1930’s, long before eastern religions and philosophies had come to be the influence they are today. Lewis perceived that only these three alternatives are possible: No God; Christ is God; All is God. My plea in this essay is to identify the most plausible of these three views that would bring about the right perspectives on work. In rather paradoxical ways, both the atheistic and Hindu views deny hierarchy in matter. Atheism is reductionistic and therefore sees nothing other than matter in the entire universe. Hinduism, on the other hand, elevates all of matter to the level of the divine. It will be clear as we go along that views that deny hierarchy in the nature of matter eventually end up introducing hierarchy in work and thus ultimately affect our attitude to work. "
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| The Soul of Entrepreneurship by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample The Soul of EntrepreneurshipFROM MAX WEBER TO THE NEW BUSINESS SPIRITUALITY_______________________________________________________________________________ [There can be] no capitalist development without an entrepreneurial class; no entrepreneurial class without a moral charter; no moral charter without religious premises.[1] In the classic film “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) typifies the entrepreneur for many. “The lesson in business,” he tells Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), is “don't get emotional about stock, it clouds the judgment.” Gekko is constantly in a telephone conversation, using language such as “block anybody else’s merger efforts,” “Christmas is over, business is business,” and “I want every orifice in his body flowing red.” In a famous scene, Gekko redefines greed: “Greed is good, greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures that essence of the evolutionary spirit.” It is interesting that Gekko uses the word “spirit” in a film that exemplifies the secular humanism that has been the dominant cultural environment of business in the Western world for several decades. But there is a change in Western culture that makes the question of a moral charter for entrepreneurship and even the search for a religious/spiritual foundation apt if not urgent. [1] Gianfranco Poggi, Calvinism and the Capitalist Spirit: Max Weber's Protestant Ethic (London: Macmillan, 1983), 83. |
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