The Talmud and corporate citizenship

Alexander Maune

doi:10.21511/ee.07(2).2016.5

Abstract

The Talmud is without doubt the most prominent text of rabbinic Judaism`s traditional literature which is replete with precepts that deal with corporate citizenship. Thus the Talmud can be used as a starting point for those who are interested in establishing financially successful companies. This article is based on a literature review of related journal articles and the Talmud. Some of the issues discussed in this article include: Talmud and ecology, caring for the environment, corporate charity, employer-employee relationship, honest weights and measures, community prosperity, buyer-seller relationship, transparency, honesty in business, fraud and theft, and corporate citizenship in the contemporary world. The author concludes that sustainable financial success is guaranteed through corporate citizenship. This article is of benefit to the academia, corporate citizenship advocates and the business community at large

Highlights

The Talmud is without doubt the most prominent text of rabbinic Judaisms traditional literature which is replete with precepts that deal with corporate citizenship
The Talmud is without doubt the most prominent text of rabbinic Judaism’s traditional literature
According to Miller (2011) cited in Maune (2015a), the Talmud is a comprehensive term for the Mishnah and Gemara, as joined in the two compilations known as the Babylonian Talmud (6th century) and the Jerusalem Talmud (5th century)

Summary

Research methodology

This article was informed by the researcher’s inductive epistemological, ontological and axiological logic of reasoning. An inductive approach starts by looking at the focus of the research. It considers the multiple realities, the need to dig deeper for exploration and reconstruction of meaning. The aim of the literature review was to describe and critically appraise studies and articles reporting on the Talmud and corporate citizenship. The review focused on gathering evidence to understand and reconstruct the meaning of corporate citizenship in the Talmud. The literature review was conducted through collecting published electronic journal articles and other relevant documents. The aim was to dig deeper into the text to look for categories or themes in the data that build into rich corporate citizenship ideas. Many different strategies are employed in qualitative research to establish trustworthiness (Krefting, 1991), and this article adopted triangulation to enhance its trustworthiness

Talmudic conception of corporate citizenship

Corporate citizenship in the contemporary world

Conclusion