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The Italian Economia Aziendale and Catholic Social Teaching: How to Apply the Common Good Principle at the Managerial Level

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Abstract

The ongoing global economic and financial crisis has exposed the risks of considering market and business organizations only as instruments for creating economic wealth while paying little heed to their role in ethics and values. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) could provide a useful contribution in rethinking the role of values in business organizations and markets because CST puts forward an anthropological view that involves thinking of the marketplace as a community of persons with the aim of participating in the Common Good (CG) of society. In the light of the CST tradition, and in particular Caritas in Veritate, this article investigates the thinking of some of the historical scholars of the Italian Economia Aziendale (EA), by focusing on the concept of azienda, in order to reinterpret in a more humanistic way the role of business organizations in society. By linking CST and EA, the dichotomy between for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and the stereotype of the so-called business amorality that has, for a long time, driven business managers can be transcended. The conclusions imply a forward-looking application of the ethical concepts embedded in the Italian science of EA.

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Notes

  1. Arguments that support the choice not to translate the term “Economia Aziendale” (EA) can be found in works by several Italian authors (Zan 1994; Dagnino and Quattrone 2006).

  2. The above footnote also applies to azienda but this term can be loosely translated as “firm” (for more details, see Viganò 1998, p. 382).

  3. Original text in English by Signori and Rusconi (2009). Previously, the azienda had been defined as “the sum of phenomena, business and relationships which are administered relative to an amount of capital” (Besta 1922, p. 5, original text in English by Zan 1994). Zappa’s contribution surpassed this longstanding theoretical framework, based on the Spencerian organicism and positivist reductionism (Canziani 1992), by providing the definition of azienda as a durable economic institution set up to satisfy human needs (Zappa 1927, 1956).

  4. Numerous books and articles have been published on the relationship between business and ethics (e.g. Rusconi and Dorigatti 2005; Cavalieri 2002) at the national level.

  5. Original text in English by Signori and Rusconi (2009).

Abbreviations

CG:

Common Good

EA:

Economia Aziendale

CST:

Catholic Social Teaching

CSDC:

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

CV:

Caritas in Veritate

CA:

Centesimus Annus

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Acknowledgments

Comments received from colleagues at the 16th International Symposium on Ethics, Business and Society (13–15 May 2010, Barcelona, Spain), Eben Research Conference 2010 (14–16 June, Tampere, Finland), and 23rd Eben Annual Conference 2010 (9–11 September, Trento, Italy) are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks go to the guest editors of the JBE special issue Michele Andreaus, Antonino Vaccaro, and Michael Asslaender and the three anonymous referees for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.

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  1. Department of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Via Inama, 5, 38100, Trento, Italy

    Ericka Costa

  2. University of Bergamo, Via dei Caniana 2, 24127, Bergamo, Italy

    Tommaso Ramus

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Costa, E., Ramus, T. The Italian Economia Aziendale and Catholic Social Teaching: How to Apply the Common Good Principle at the Managerial Level. J Bus Ethics 106, 103–116 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1056-x

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