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Business Dilemmas and Religious Belief: An Explorative Study among Dutch Executives

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Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between religious belief and the dilemmas Dutch executives confront in daily business practice. We find that the frequency with which dilemmas arise is directly related to various aspects of religious belief, such as the belief in a transcendental being and the intensity of religious practice. Despite this relationship, only 17% of the dilemmas examined involve a religious standard. Most dilemmas originate from a conflict between moral and practical standards. We also find that 79% of the identified dilemmas stem from a conflict between two or more internalized standards of the executive.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the employers’ association VNO-NCW and the Science Shop of Tilburg University for their financial support. Furthermore, we would like to thank Boaz van Luijk and Aziza Yahia for their assistance in the collection of data used in this paper. Thanks also to the participants of the EBEN research conference in Tallinn, June 2005, and the EBEN annual conference in Bonn, September 2005, for their very useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility,, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Johan Graafland

  2. Department of Business-Society Management, RSM Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Muel Kaptein

  3. Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten

Authors
  1. Johan Graafland
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  2. Muel Kaptein
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  3. Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten
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Correspondence to Johan Graafland.

Additional information

Johan Graafland is a Professor of Economics, Business and Ethics at Tilburg University and Director of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University. He has published articles in The Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: A European Review, Philosophia Reformatica, Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Applied Economics, Economics Letters, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Empirical Economics, Journal of Policy Modelling, Public Finances/Finances Publique, Economic Modeling, Journal of Public Economics and others. His current research interests are corporate social responsibility and philosophy of economics.

Muel Kaptein is a Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management at the RSM Erasmus University, where he chairs the Department of Business-Society Management. Muel is also a Director at KPMG Integrity and Investigation Services. He has published articles in a number of journals, including The Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society Review, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Review and European Management Journal. His most recent books are The Six Principles of Managing with Integrity (Spiro Press) and The Balanced Company (Oxford University Press). His research interests include the management of ethics, the measurement of ethics and the ethics of management. Muel is a Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics.

Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten is a senior researcher at the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She has several years of experience as business consultant in the field of organizational change and group processes within organizations. Her research interests include leadership, religion and corporate social responsibility. She is currently working on a PhD thesis on religion and leadership.

Appendices

Appendix A

Table AI Classification of aspects of religious belief
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Appendix B

TABLE BI Classification of dilemmas
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Graafland, J., Kaptein, M. & Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten, C. Business Dilemmas and Religious Belief: An Explorative Study among Dutch Executives. J Bus Ethics 66, 53–70 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9054-0

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