The Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland will host a conference on religious traditions and business behavior on October 31:
This forum explores two central questions in the relationship between the world’s major religious traditions and the business behavior of adherents to those traditions:
First, what do the world’s major organized religious traditions – Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism – prescribe about business and financial ethics and behavior?
Second, how and why have business and financial actors seriously compromised the leading religious traditions of their cultures?
By interrogating these two core questions, the conference will yield insights valuable to contemporary business and religious leaders about abiding questions such as: Do the scriptures and doctrines of these religions appear to have had a marked effect on financial behavior? Does religion appear to be a more potent or less potent influence than business ethics courses in fostering sound, ethical, and socially responsible financial behavior? How can religion best be promulgated to make financial behavior more sound, ethical, and socially responsible?
Speakers include past CLR Forum Guest Ron Colombo, who will present a paper, “Religious Liberty and the Business Corporation.” Details are here.
I find it puzzling that a program about the impact of religion on business practice excludes professors who teach religion. Still, the consideration of the topic suggests some sensitivity to the potential shaping of moral character by faith.