Spirituality and Materialism in Business

“

It is argued that Buddhist and Christian entrepreneurs do not consider the cultivation of profit to be the ultimate goal of doing business. “Beyond-profit” entrepreneurs focus on their own and employees’ personal development, or on promoting the mission of their enterprise instead of the cultivation of profit, and they consider profit to be a positive outcome of their spiritual value commitment. “Moderately materialistic” entrepreneurs consider profit to be a requirement for staying in business, primarily focusing on promoting the mission of their enterprise besides cultivating only a necessary amount of profit. For the vast majority of Buddhist and Christian entrepreneurs spirituality dominates materialism in business because it determines the mission of the enterprise and the way business activities are executed. A relationship of compromise between spirituality and materialism characterizes only a few entrepreneurs who effectuate spirituality within a framework of external conditions imposed by material objectives on their enterprises; however, in their cases spirituality still determines the way business activities are executed.

”