Caring Management in the New Economy

Care is a central aspect of human existence. What we care about and who we care for largely determine our way of being. The subjects of care present a frame of reference for our human functioning. Within organizational settings, caring is usually thought of as pertaining either to leadership roles or to team and peer social ties. But from the organizational or management point of view, there are more stakeholders to care about. The imperative of responsibility implies that nature, human beings, and future generations should be accepted as primary subjects of care in business. Business actors must develop practices that incorporate genuine interest in and caring for the existence and well-being of these primordial “stakeholders.” We care for others not because they have rights that we should respect, or because we expect something in return from them. We care for others because of our humanity. However, this does not mean that care is always disinterested. Caring for others in many cases serves our best interest. But the primary motive for caring is not self-interest, but our responsibility for the existence and well-being of others.

The paper presents some of the challenges facing contemporary Western societies and highlights their origin in capitalism’s unsound self-interpretation—as found in the most familiar modern social imaginaries. In reaction to the uncontested familiarity of these modern social imaginaries, the paper explores an alternative view of human relations in Buber’s philosophy of dialogue with the resumption of some of his ideas in contemporary theories about the sources and meaning of economic and social cooperation. The works referred to are Tomáš Sedláček’s The Economics of Good and Evil and Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization. Rifkin considers empathy the ability of human beings to show solidarity—not only with each other, but also towards their fellow creatures who they share both the planet and the attribute of mortality with. In this conception, humans have gone from empathy in blood ties, to empathy in religious associational ties, to empathy based on national identification. The emergence of an empathic civilization seems to be a consequence of an existential similarity of finite beings, combined with the possibilities brought on by the third industrial revolution. But if we search for the origin of the idea, we could also find it in other sources—among them the religious (chassidic) spirituality of Buber’s dialogic philosophy.

Caring can be viewed as a set of specific activities and relations in the context of health care, social solidarity and interpersonal relations. On the other hand, caring can also be considered as a general attitude and structure of all our activities. Martin Heidegger developed an ontological analysis of “Sorge” (care) as the foundational structure of our being in the world. The paper explains Heidegger’s concept of “Sorge” and confronts it with the criticism of Emmanuel Levinas who formulates an alternative view on caring as responsibility for the vulnerability of the other. Vulnerability is a key notion to understand caring as an ethical and non paternalistic relation to all beings. The paper applies the notions of caring and vulnerability to the sphere of economics. It distinguishes between caring as philanthropy and caring as relational economy. Today, civil economy is represented in different types of cooperative entrepreneurship, but its potential is not restricted to specific juridical forms of cooperation. All types of entrepreneurship based on trust and cooperation imply a logic of caring that precedes and corrects the logic of profit maximization.

The paper links philosophical reflection with business-and-society considerations concerning a culture of compassion for economic life. The initial part of the paper explores the philosophical genealogy of the concept of compassion, revealing it as a primordial feature of the human condition, albeit a feature subject to a variety of interpretations. In the analysis, the paper highlights several tensions attending alternative interpretations of the concept of compassion that appear across ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern treatments in the Western philosophical tradition. The paper then proceeds to extend some of these interpretative perspectives on compassion into contemporary economic life, focusing on hybrid social enterprise. The paper concludes that compassion can constitute a motivation and inspiration for seeking pro-social entrepreneurial business solutions in our deeply divided and profoundly needy world.

The paper recalls the importance of consciousness in business and management. It refers to Steve Jobs of Apple as an embodiment of the spiritual principle that one person can change the world. This case also illustrates the spiritual power behind the aspiration of the human spirit for freedom, empowerment, and mastery. Jobs perceived the powerful stirrings of a deep evolutionary social movement, and Apple delivered creative, new products to meet this. Apple’s collective accomplishments, like those of Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance, exemplify the virtually infinite potential for innovation and creativity. The paper emphasizes the value of values because values determine the ultimate level of accomplishment. Values are an expression of what we regard as valuable. The power of values depends on the intensity and sincerity with which we value them. Values embrace all aspects of life and encompass the subjective as well as the objective dimension. But, aside from their specific individual relevance, they always reflect on and refer back to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, for the implementation of any value necessarily requires the implementation of many others.

The paper states that there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift toward a new multidimensional, multi-objective economy that serves a diversity of values alongside economic goals. The level of environmental and social threats is developing at an exponential rate and the need for drastic transformation is pressing. The paper warns that any system is guided by the metrics it uses. Metrics do not merely serve as tools for measuring results. They actually act as a compass or dashboard, leading us on our way. In recent years there have been many attempts to create an updated multidimensional dashboard. The OECD countries, for example, have developed what they call “Well-being Indicators.” The Kingdom of Bhutan has created a “Gross National Happiness” index, and the UN the Millennium Sustainable Goals. Such a paradigm shift requires immense investment; trillions of dollars per annum in impact investment. The only potential source of long-term financing is retirement programs. These can be either public sector or the pension plans, retirement and saving programs, and long-term life insurance products of the private sector. The financial institutions in the private sector currently manage for their customers an immense portfolio of approximately $80 trillion.

The paper investigates how Catholic Social Teaching can contribute to the creation of fairer and more humane business models. It gives an outline of the main historical moments in the development of Catholic Social Teaching with regard to the economy and business management. Then it analyses the proposal of the Economy of Communion (EoC) as a potential framework for companies that wish to implement Catholic Social Teaching in their activities. The EoC model suggests that company profits should be distributed in three parts. The first part is dedicated to the company’s growth, development, and economic sustainability; the second toward the most needy people in the social environment of the organization; and the third part invested in education creating a new type of economic culture that is at the service of people and of the common good. The companies that belong to the EoC movement are for-profit businesses which consider reciprocity and gratuity an integral part of their businesses. Both reciprocity and gratuity are guided by the logic of the gift which is innate to human relations and should be promoted so businesses become more authentically human and favor the development of people.

Considering human beings as “human resources” or “human capital” means that they are used only as a means of generating financial value. There is, however, an alternative approach emerging in management theory and practice, according to which all employees are considered and treated as persons and as ends in themselves; i.e., individuals with dignity. The paper shows that a personalistic approach might contradict the principles of short-horizon profit maximization, but still support the long-term economic sustainability of the company—but only in the case that the latter is not just considered another “managerial tool” aimed at maximizing performance, but is rather deeply rooted in the company’s DNA as part of its ethos. The fundamental principle of such an organization is implemented mutual love. Ideally, all employees and even external stakeholders will share the same value-set. Key to sustaining such a culture is the leader. When top managers focus on establishing and maintaining this type of culture they should follow a “servant-leadership” model. The paper proves the logic of the above-described approach and what it means in terms of day-to-day management, focusing on the leader–employee relationship.

The paper analyzes the way a spiritual value orientation influences entrepreneurs to develop a caring attitude in business. It presents the results of an explorative study about Christian and Buddhist entrepreneurs working in Hungary. Christian and Buddhist entrepreneurs have different ontological beliefs. Christianity is an anthropocentric tradition, while Buddhism emphasizes the intrinsic value of all sentient beings (human and non-human). Nevertheless, caring for others is of major relevance in both spiritual traditions. It is expressed as solidarity in the practice of Christian entrepreneurs, and as compassion in the practice of Buddhist ones. Caring appears in different but intertwined fields of business, and is realized through the similar business practices of Christian and Buddhist entrepreneurs. The observable shared features are as follows: (i) such entrepreneurs take into account the interests of their employees to a great extent; (ii) they treat their stakeholders equally, as they award the same importance to suppliers and all other partners in business as they do their customers; (iii) they pay attention to preserving culture and the natural environment; (iv) they have a long-term orientation, and aim to achieve a sate of long-term sustainability; and (v) they define the goals of business more broadly than profit-maximization.

Entrepreneurship is critical for increasing the capacity for innovation and responsiveness of business. However, not all entrepreneurial activities are geared to solving the real and most serious problems facing society. One of the biggest challenges today is climate change, which is the major problem for the Earth and, in particular, for future generations. The paper asks what characterizes the development of the character of entrepreneurs who genuinely care about nature as a primordial stakeholder. It presents the case of Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, a clothing company which has succeeded in creating innovative solutions and has implemented a number of pro-social and pro-environmental activities that inspire other business leaders and organizations to create more sustainable practices. The paper gives an account of the background of Chouinard’s ecological consciousness that makes him and his business a role model for other companies. The paper also reflects upon what would be a fitting education for business leaders at a time when management theories and the field of economics are dominated by abstract conceptions according to which narrow self-interests and a mechanical worldview reduce nature to resources to be exploited.

The paper underlines the fact that metaphors determine the way we perceive and understand our world. There are a wide variety of metaphors for organizations, many of which depict rationality, but only a few of which express their spiritual and human side. The paper discusses three metaphors by which the mutual entitlements and obligations of employees and organizations can be understood. The first is the transactional, market-based “balance sheet” metaphor which is used in exchange and equity theories, where accountant-style “quid pro quo” exchanges are pertinent. The second is the legal-like “contract” metaphor where agreements, promises and tacit expectations about exchanges and the rules of exchange are prevalent. Finally, the spiritual metaphor of the “covenant” in the Jewish tradition is presented, by which obligations and entitlements are not dependent on other parties’ fulfilling their role, and where “horizontal” relations between employees and management are complemented by “vertical” obligations to a higher cause. The paper refers to empirical studies to show that the covenant elements are pertinent in the mutual obligations of members of business firms. Some new findings are presented in the paper that validate the idea that the employee-organization relation is partially covenantal. The paper concludes that the covenant metaphor can be fruitfully used to describe and explain care and spirituality in organizational settings.

Excessive predominance of analytical, logical and quantitatively oriented left brain activity has led to the numbing of creative, intuitive and holistic right brain development. Creativity and joy in the learning experience has been sacrificed on the altar of this fossilized system just to ensure the ‘rigor’ of pedagogical methods and processes. The victims of this mechanized and often mindless, utilitarian knowledge are not only students but also faculty, who are hard-pressed in the rush for rush for promotion and tenure. The paper raises the voice of the ‘Other’ to offer alternative sources and methods of learning in the light of valuable insights from the life and work of Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate poet from India who was not only a literary genius but also a musician, philosopher, artist and a pioneer in experimenting with alternative education. The paper also outlines the salient learning points from Tagore to enrich the presently ossified education system and bring in fresh air and new light that promotes the all-round humanistic development of individuals and the creation of a joyful and creative learning environment. Learning from Nature, immersion in silence and integration of inputs from the Humanities into mainstream management education are of extreme importance.

In an uncertain, fast-changing world that globalization, digitalization and financialization have transformed—inducing a “civilization” change—on a planet fragilized by man’s greed and excess of consumption, we need to explore new paths to create value for the Common Good in a sustainable environment, caring for future generations. The paper explores the relevance of spirituality for nurturing an alternative set of values and to promote the development of organizations in which “caring” would be embedded in management philosophy, in corporate culture and practices. Examples are given and a path proposed to develop globally responsible leaders and entrepreneurs who will have internalized the benefit and the potential strength of spirituality and who will value the relevance of a “caring” behavior in their leadership role. We explore how business schools—if they really desire to walk the talk to be a “force for good”—can develop an education process that would enhance this individual’s quest for spirituality and leverage it to guide leadership behavior.

The importance of care is gaining considerable significance in the harsh reality of the Anthropocene, when climate collapse, ecological degradation, and social disruption are a non-distant possibility. The paper calls for responsibility and action that is aimed at making significant changes in the world of affairs at this dark time. In the darkest moments of the darkest hour of humanity some lights still shone, and the care, love, and courage of some saved a few others, who later saved many. There are thousands of stories of first-, second-, and third-generation survivors of the Holocaust who, with their humanity, love, and compassion, their inspiration, entrepreneurship, and science, changed the world for the better. Caring for others is basically a non-consequentialist form of behavior which may have cosmic significance. Helping human and nonhuman beings, especially in emergency situations like the Holocaust or climate collapse, is the final test of our own humanity. Business and management are no exception to this.