Title: What Is "The Good" of Business? Insights from the Work of Bernard Lonergan
Abstract: Scholars and practitioners examining purpose of increasingly are drawing on theological resources for understanding the roles and responsibilities of business in economy and society. Recent conversations have centered around, the shareholder, stakeholder, and models of the firm. This study draws on the work of Bernard Lonergan to offer two contributions to these conversations: (1) Understanding constitutive function of helps better assess how working life shapes us as persons and offers further argument in favor of an enhanced common good model of the firm. (2) There are three very different levels of moral meaning that operate in business life, and this three-level framework can provide ethical guidance for the life and work of business. The author concludes that Lonergan's method of exploring our operations of meaning in business life offers resources for advancing these conversations and better situating ourselves in relation to these debates. The past decade has seen a growing conversation around purpose of and participants increasingly are drawing on theological resources for understanding the role of business in economy and society.1 Traditionally, business has been understood to be about one thing and one thing only, returning a profit to shareholders. In this view, business needs to look no further than to competitive market forces and government regulations for guidance on how to manage its affairs. This traditional view, however, has been challenged and commentators have argued that business needs to be rethought in relation to wider visions of human well-being, the environment, global justice, and the common good. In some way, business people need to become active participants in guiding their affairs according to higher ethical standards. Business needs a conscience, and shaping this conscience calls for fundamentally new insights into the purpose of business and its place in market, economy, and society.2 The concerns prompting the challenges to the traditional view have been diverse.3 With the globalization of business and the proliferation of information technologies, market forces have proven unable to limit the negative impacts of business on communities, societies, and the environment. Moreover, these same global forces have reduced the regulatory constraints that can be exercised on transnational corporations by national governments. At home, racial, cultural, and gender inequities, conflicts of interest, and workplace tensions have drawn attention to business accountability to ethical standards beyond those normally captured in the traditional view. Market enthusiasts saw the fall of the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet Union as evidence in favor of the market-centered view. More recent events around the world, however, are providing critics with ample evidence of limitations in the older vision. And, as if this were not enough, the Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals have added new reasons for championing the cause of ethical accountability in business. Clearly, the purpose of business needs to be rethought and economists, management theorists, ethicists, and theologians are offering diverse perspectives on how this might be done. The goal of this study is to introduce a few ideas from the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan into this conversation.4 Lonergan's is a rather strange sort of philosophy because it is not first and foremost a speculative system offering principles to be parachuted into business from afar. Rather, it is an invitation to engage in an odd type of reflection: a reflection on the acts of meaning that we perform in the experiences of daily life.5 Many of us work in businesses and, even if we do not, we may work in places that share many features with business. As we go through our day, we focus on the objects of our work: the orders, the documents, the transactions, the new ideas, the patterns of organization, the technical, financial, and interpersonal challenges that arise. …
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 7
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