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Rating: 
Summary: A bold book....
Review: "This is a bold book with a clear wake-up call to businesspeople and the result is a heartening and indispensable guide for anyone making critical decisions in business today."--Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart (Wiley)
Rating:
Summary: A bold book....
Review: "This is a bold book with a clear wake-up call to businesspeople and the result is a heartening and indispensable guide for anyone making critical decisions in business today."--Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart (Wiley)
Rating: 
Summary: A cry into the wind . . .
Review: The challenge of fusing Christian values with business life. I find it very difficult to deal with individual moral value systems in the business world. So, as a manager, I developed a concept of Ethics is a Business Process in which clearly stated moral values of the company are inculcated throughout the corporation; in mission and vision statements, in slogans, in training, in policies and procedures. These values cannot be based on religion and still be welcoming to our increasingly multi-ethnic workforce here in the U.S. and around the world. Rather, I believe we must keep religion out of the ethical process.Yet we know that individuals most often include their religious up-bringing in the list of "where I get my moral values." Usually listed are family, school, and religious institute. So how do we keep things separate while honoring the basis for our moral sources? Nash and McLennan posit that from a Christian point of view, the coping mechanisms are neither active nor developing synergy between faith and business. The wake-up call they wish to pronounce in this book is limited in that they really only address Christianity's view and interaction. While this is certainly a significant view, it is not a majority view and is becoming more of a minority view in our culture. This, therefore, limits the usefulness of this book to managers in the business world unless they can make the translation from Christianity to "any religious or cultural" group. I found the book useful in outlining the difficulties faced by business people today. But I did not find hope for an easy or even difficult solution. Instead, I became more convinced than ever that we need to make religion a personal and PRIVATE affair and make sure that our business moral values are clearly stated in secular terms so that we as employees or service providers can decide on the appropriate interaction with the corporation. Today, science informs our moral values more eloquently than many religious institutions and therefore informed individuals turn to those sources whenever possible. As a business executive, I remain unconvinced that we can bring religious language into the multi-cultural workplace without creating severe strain and discomfort for the employees. If there is a homogeneous workforce of one culture and/or one religious faith, then there is no difficulty. Luckily, that is rarely the case. I find the multi-cultural environment to be most stimulating and intellectually preferable to a homogeneous workplace. So I vote for clearly defined secular moral values in the workplace. Keep religion out.
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