God’s Participatory Vision of a Global Symphony: Catholic Business Leaders Integrating Talents through Dispute and Shared Decision System Design

Abstract

As integrators of talents, Catholic family business leaders are strategically positioned to leverage the unique differences of their workforce. Business literature currently emphasizes participatory leadership as best practice. Participatory leadership is insufficient, however, because increasing the number of voices in the decision-making process may lead to higher levels of conflict or disengagement if the voices are disregarded. This paper proposes that the Catholic Social Teaching concepts of subsidiarity and solidarity provide the guiding principles to integrate participation because together they can account for all stakeholders while advancing business goals. To operationalize these principles, this paper suggests that the dispute resolution field has developed analytical frameworks to assess and reimagine current policies, procedures, and culture for dispute resolution (Dispute Systems Design) and shared decision making (Shared Decision System Design). Ultimately, businesses are the training ground to prepare citizens to participate in the public square and contribute to the common good.