Making Spiritual Knowledge Practical by Integrating it with Business Knowledge

Abstract

Teaching ethics in business schools is fraught with several practical issues. The Jesuit values (spiritual knowledge), arranged in a pentagon with five interrelated mega-paradigms, define the conduct of a person in all his/her walks of life. We believe that the pentagon of Jesuit values is a great guide for shaping morality at individual level. We expand the pentagon into a heptagon by adding two more nodes that are taught in business schools, namely, “innovation” and “efficiency.” We believe that this expanded framework of Jesuit values is more pragmatic and more useful for guiding personal and professional lives of students who acquire business knowledge. The extra nodes in the heptagon show how the five nodes of the pre-existing pentagon manifest in action. Innovation and efficiency are the outlets for behavior in which the original five Jesuit values become prominent. Practical utility of this framework is illustrated through a number of real-life examples. The heptagon’s ease of use facilitates the i...