Introduction: Religion and the Organization Man

Abstract

Surprisingly, the increasing interest social sciences have shown in religion for some time - indicated by the widely discussed volume of essays by Habermas (2008) - has almost entirely left out the issue of organization. This is because the rediscovery of the functionality of religious heritage, which modern societies cannot shed for the sake of their liberal, including the ensuing moral principles, should not only focus on the mundane for orientation and sophisticated ways of articulating the assessment of individual life plans or of social pathologies at societal level. It is often assumed that the spread of core beliefs of naturalism, which is concomitant with scientific and technical progress on the one hand and globalization on the other, gives rise to religious needs. However, this is neither an altogether new phenomenon in modern age nor would it be permissible to ascertain a fundamentally changed structure of needs or a trend reversal at this level. When considering that secularization was accompanied by the modern world's state of being organized, the rather remarkable thing is the new demand for normative orientation, phrased in moral terminology a result of the need of organizations corporate players. This is despite the fact that organizations are considered a neutral sphere: Just modern organizations, being systems, show ignorance about their objectives, the member of the organization sheds his/her religious ideas upon passing through the factory gate - or at least outside the organization. However, from the point of view of theory, organizations encounter three fundamental problems, which have always invited ethical solutions and thus solutions founded on religion. In the first place, the establishment of organizations corporate players calls for the development of decision rules on collective issues well norms for dividing possible gains and losses (Coleman 1974). Secondly, organizations do not only require material resources from their social environment but also symbolic or legitimizing ones (Meyer/Rowan 1977). Finally, in order to survive in the long term, organizations depend on voluntary contributions of their members, over and beyond the output to which they are formally entitled (Barnard 1938). Thus, the iron cage of bureaucratic organization was not only as hard steel in the sense of external, but also internal constraints or, put differently, the Berufsmensch (someone whose identity is rooted in work), also wanted - and not only ought - to be like that (Weber 1920/2002). This implies that modern organization was able to derive various benefits from the premodern religious heritage. The close links between organization and religion may have multiplied in the present time: So, for instance, compared with some decades ago, globalization did not only entail a greater ethnic diversity of organizations, but also a greater religious diversity. In addition, the organizational is becoming increasingly female, and women are known to be more religious than men (Stark 2002). Finally, contemporary organizations no longer face only the social issue but a multitude of ethical problems concerning the community: At different levels, organizations are calling for normative standards, such secondary virtues of the good citizen at the individual level or accountability standards at the collective level. These are just some of the reasons for taking a closer look at the relationship between organization and religion, which was the subject of the 2009 workshop of the Management Revue journal held at the Inter-University Center Dubrovnik. The present issue of the journal contains some of the contributions to the seminar, well additional material. On the basis of the Aristotelian concept of justice and the reception of the latter by the scholastic doctrine of the just price, Christian Hecker and Hans G. Nut^nger discuss the relationship between economy and justice. …