Baha'i Perspective on Business and Organization

A summary of the most important issues, approaches and models in the field of spirituality in business, economics and society. The Handbook of Spirituality andBusiness presents a comprehensive pluralistic view covering all the major religious and spiritual traditions. It is a response to three developments that challenge the business-as-usual mindset. Firstly, in response to a growing interest in spirituality applied to models of transformational leadership, in theories of social capital and in practices of values-driven management, it explores the emerging field of business spirituality—its main concepts, models and practices. Secondly, there is a growing awareness that the world is unsustainable without a strong commitment to frugality and self-restriction, and that material resources such as clean air and water, as well as non-material resources such as trust, compassion and peace, are fragile. Managing our vital resources will not succeed without good management of our spiritual resources. Therefore, this handbook aims to elucidate some of the conditions for a transformation towards a post-capitalist, values-driven global economy. And thirdly, although the interest in spiritually-driven entrepreneurship and governance is increasing, spirituality remains a vague and confusing concept that needs intellectual clarification. Hence, it seeks to clarify the concept of spirituality in the field of business and economics. Heuristic in style and content it explores new ideas on the frontier of the discipline which will appeal to scholars and practitioners looking for up-to-date and insightful knowledge. This handbook is structured in five parts: • the nature of spirituality; • spiritually inspired economics; • socioeconomic problems in spiritual perspective; • business spirituality; and • good practices and working models.