Same Direction,Different Paths: a Phenomenological Study of Employees who are Religious yet Open to Religious Pluralism

While there is a growing interest in workplace spirituality, much of that focus excludes religion even though the vast majority of people are affiliated with a religious tradition. Attempts to bring one’s “whole self” to work can be problematic for those who are religious because of concerns of offense or proselytizing. This phenomenological study explored the lived experience of a group of 15 professional employees who were personally religious while also remaining open to religious pluralism in the workplace. This group was largely Christian, and was chosen from participants in leadership seminars and graduate courses in the United States. Analysis revealed four different postures used by participants to express openness toward religious difference. These approaches are described in detail, and the implications of these finding for the advancement of pluralism in the workplace are considered.     

THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION ON SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

Religion plays a fundamental role in most people's lives with profound implications for socioeconomic development. This survey provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the causal mechanisms between religion and development discussed and tested in the economics literature, and reviews quantitative empirical evidence on the actual effects of religion on economic and social dimensions of development. We start by disaggregating the concept of religion into four religious dimensions and propose a framework to conceptualize causal mechanisms. Numerous mechanisms are possible but only a few uncontested findings exist. Religion is ambivalent vis‐à‐vis development: although religious ideas can foster certain forms of human capital acquisition and labor market participation, scholars have found a negative relationship between religious dimensions and both income and gender equality as well as innovation activities. Religious identity is also a source of labor market discrimination and has ambivalent effects on economic growth and social cohesion. Methodological challenges refer to the availability of fine‐grained data, especially for developing countries, the use of concepts and definitions, and the lack of causal inference.     

Religious participation and attitude towards LGBT+ communities. The case of Italy

In recent years, LGBT + communities have obtained significant victories in terms of recognition and civil rights in Western countries. Nonetheless, various forms of discrimination are still common, and a wide extent of variation is observed in societal attitudes towards LGBT + people. Several reasons may explain this heterogeneity, including religion. This work proposes a novel measure of tolerance towards LGBT + people, i.e. the Queer Friendliness Index, based on microdata drawn from a survey of citizen perception in Italy. Subsequently, we analyse the effect of active religious participation on the degree of tolerance towards LGBT + communities. To address self-selection among parish members, we resort to the Heckman procedure. We find that religious participation, reinforcing traditional values and creating strong relational ties among parish members, distorts the marginal effects of the socio-economic determinants of tolerance, producing an adverse effect. This problem may explain the large territorial differences observed across Italian macro-areas.     

Keeping the Faith but Losing in Court: Legal Implications of Proselytizing in the Workplace

Proselytizing at work occurs when an employee tries to convince coworkers to change their religions. This presents an interesting set of legal issues, because some employees feel that proselytizing is a requirement of their religion. Therefore, they could perceive a prohibition on proselytizing at work as a discriminatory act against members of their religion. On the other hand, other employees may be offended by attempts to change their religious practices. These employees could perceive workplace proselytizing as religious harassment. Therefore, American employers have to adopt religious harassment policies that are much more complex than their sexual harassment policies. In this paper, we outline the components of a legally compliant religious harassment policy which balances the competing rights of proselytizers and their intended targets.     

Workplace Religious Displays and Perceptions of Organization Attractiveness

Workplace religious expression has become an intensely debated topic across news outlets and social media. However research on what constitutes acceptable vs unacceptable workplace religious display is sparse. At a time when EEOC claims involving religion are on the rise there is a clear need for study in this area. In this study participants in two samples read 27 scenarios where an interviewer engaged in a Christian religious display during a job interview. We used Christian religious displays for their ease of recognition in an American sample. Participants rated each workplace religious display in terms of likelihood of occurrence and organization attractiveness. In both samples organization attractiveness ratings were more negative than expected in a predominantly Christian sample signifying that while individuals may value their ability to express their religion they may not appreciate such displays from those who represent an organization. Verbal and physical religious displays received more negative ratings compared to scenarios that spoke to shared experiences such as displaying pictures of one’s children in a religious ceremony. Application in organizations and HR implications are discussed.     

Religious identity in the workplace: A systematic review,research agenda,and practical implications

We conducted a systematic review of relevant literature to address how religious and occupational identities relate to each other in the workplace. We identified 53 relevant publications for analysis and synthesis. Studies addressed value differences associated with religion and occupation, identity tensions, unmet expectations, and the connection of religious identity to well-being and work outcomes. Key variables in the connection between religious and occupational identities included personal preferences, the fit between religious identity and job-related concerns, and the organization's policies, practices, and expectations. We highlight the personal and organizational consequences of being able to express religious identity at work and the conditions that promote high congruence between religious identity and its expression in the workplace. From these findings, we develop a research agenda and offer recommendations for management practice that focus on support for expression of religious identity at work while maintaining a broader climate of inclusion.     

Charitable giving expenditures and the faith factor

Using a permanent income hypothesis approach and an income-giving status interaction effect, a double hurdle model provides evidence of significant differences from the impact of household income and various household characteristics on both a household's likelihood of giving and its level of giving to religion, charity, education, others outside the household, and politics. An analysis of resulting income elasticity estimates revealed that households consider religious giving a necessity good at all levels of income, while other categories of giving are generally found to be luxury goods. Further, those who gave to religion were found to give more to education and charity then those not giving to religion, and higher education households were more likely to give to religion than households with less education. This analysis suggests that there may be more to religious giving behavior than has been assumed in prior studies and underscores the need for further research into the motivation for religious giving. Specifically, these findings point to an enduring, internal motivation for giving rather than an external, “What do I get for what I give,” motive.     

Economic Religion and the Worship of Progress

In contemporary thought, the terms “secular” and “religious” are polar opposites. They are held to occupy separate domains. But that view is mistaken. Religious belief organizes society around fundamental ideas about ethics and existence. This article examines the way economic belief systems function as religions. Economic thought in various forms (Marxist, Keynesian, neoclassical) is brimming with implicit religious meaning. Instead of belief in an afterlife and heaven, modern economics promises heaven on earth in the form of continuous material progress. Adherents of competing economic ideologies often promote them with the energy of religious zealots. Thus, modern societies are still organized around religious principles, but they are now hidden from sight. This article shows how the religious dimension of the modern worship of economic progress is rooted in Christian theology: Calvinism in the United States and Lutheranism in the Nordic countries, which are famous for their own brand of social democracy. In recent decades, secular faith in the religion of economic progress has begun to falter. The failures of mainstream economics to warn of impending crisis has reduced its credibility, even among economists. More importantly, the rise of environmentalism as a religion has vastly increased the number of citizens who question the goal of material progress. The attack on economic religion may have also undermined the credibility of mainstream political parties, partially explaining Brexit in England and the election of Donald Trump in the United States.     

Protestantism, Labor Force Participation, and Employment Across Countries

A bstract .   Using data from 80 countries, this article analyzes whether Protestant religion affects labor market outcomes. Controlling for the impact of labor market regulations, business regulations, the tax burden, the business cycle, the level of economic development, demographic and geographical conditions, wars, and the transition from planned to market economy as well as unobserved country and year effects, we find that countries in which the largest portion of the population practices Protestant religion have substantially higher labor force participation and employment rates, particularly among women. We obtain the same result for a subgroup of 19 industrial countries for which we have better data to control for the impact of labor market institutions and business cycle fluctuations.     

A Cross‐Country Analysis of the Risk Factors for Depression at the Micro and Macro Levels

Past research has provided evidence of the role of some personal characteristics (age, gender, religion) as risk factors for depression. However, few researchers have jointly examined the specific impact of each characteristic and whether country characteristics (economic performance and others environmental factors) change the probability of being depressed. In general, this is due to the use of single‐country databases. The aim of this article is to extend previous findings by employing a much larger dataset and including the above‐mentioned country effects. We estimate probit models with country effects (model I) and we also explore linkages between specific environmental factors and depression (model II includes variables such as per capita Gross Domestic Product and the GINI index). The dataset for this research comes from the 2007 GALLUP Public Opinion Poll that allows us to consider a large and widely heterogeneous set of micro‐data. Findings indicate that depression is positively related to being a woman, adulthood, divorce, widowhood, unemployment, and low income. Moreover, we provide evidence of the significant association between economic performance and depression. Inequality raises the probability of being depressed, specially for those living in urban areas. Finally, we find that some population characteristics such as age distribution and religious affiliation facilitate depression.     

Religion and International Trade: Does the Sharing of a Religious Culture Facilitate the Formation of Trade Networks?

A bstract .   Despite interest in the influence of religion on economic activity by early economists like Adam Smith, modern economists have done little research on the subject. In light of the apparent religious fervor in many parts of the global economy, economists' seeming lack of interest in studying how religious cultures enhance or retard the globalization of economic activity is especially surprising. This article makes a contribution toward filling this void by examining how religion affects international trade. Specifically, we examine whether the sharing of religious cultures enables the formation of exchange networks that can overcome the failure or nonexistence of other social and economic institutions necessary for completing complex international transactions. We apply an expanded gravity model of international trade to control for a variety of factors that determine trade, and we use two recently developed regression methods, scaled OLS and nonlinear least squares, to exploit the model to its fullest. We find that the sharing of Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant cultures by people in different countries has a significantly positive influence on bilateral trade, all other things equal. The sharing of Roman Catholic culture has a significantly negative influence on bilateral trade, and the sharing of Islamic and Judaic cultures neither promotes nor discourages international exchange. These results suggest that some religious cultures are more conducive than others for forming international trade networks.     

Entrepreneurial Religion in the Age of Neoliberal Urbanism

The introduction to this symposium on entrepreneurial religion and neoliberal urbanism discusses leading scholarly approaches to religion and urban theory, arguing that, despite their merits, these approaches are in need of refinement. Theories on religion and urban theory too often describe religion as a reactionary phenomenon. Religious movements and spaces are generally defined as pockets of resistance and shelter against retreating or failing states under neoliberal restructuring programmes in the shadow of consumption dreams. Although religious actors and ideologies unquestionably form part of urban groups that are denied access to public and private means to wealth and security, the contributors to this symposium argue that within a global, comparative perspective, the entwinement of religion, state and market reveal more complicated configurations. Through a comparison of Islamic gated communities in Istanbul, Pentecostal prayer camps in Lagos and Pentecostal grassroots movements in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this symposium demonstrates that urban religion should also be regarded as a constitutive force of contemporary capitalism and should therefore be placed at the heart of the neoliberal construction of urban space instead of at its margins.     

Looking for God,meaning, physical fitness and beyond: the religious and spiritual space in sport entrepreneurship

Over the past several years, both academic literature and the popular press have heralded a renewed interest in religion and spirituality in both entrepreneurship and sport disciplines. The search for God, meaning, and other expressions of religiosity and spirituality tends to appear embedded in a wider variety of cultural forms in the Western world, including enterprise and sport cultures. Notwithstanding the increasing awareness of the mutual impacts of religion and spirituality in the entrepreneurship and sports academic fields, attention to these topics is lacking within the sport entrepreneurship literature. In this conceptual paper, sport entrepreneurship is re-thought from its religious and spiritual dimensions, paying special attention to the fitness sector, specifically to activities related to so-called “slow fitness”. Utilizing existential philosophy from Paul Ricoeur as our theoretical framework, we reflect on this part of the fitness industry to understand the religious and spiritual space in sport entrepreneurship. In this sense, the paper provides other elements to introduce into discussions of what defines this emergent academic area.

     

A model of secularism in the state of nature

The issue of secularization has been extensively discussed within the Economics of Religion. However, the related issue of secularism has received little, if any, attention. Moreover, social sciences have only debated secularism in the context of state. This paper disaggregates religion and secularism into a number of analytically tractable strands and explores the possibility of secularism in the state of nature from different perspectives. The incidence of secularism in the state of nature is shown to be contingent on the level of aggregation, the reference groups and the dimensions of religion under consideration, and the cost of religious contest. It is also shown that the belief regarding the externalities of individual religious practice is the key determinant of the incidence of secularism, while the degree of exclusivity of religion moderates/accentuates the effect of the aforesaid belief. Finally, it is argued that a class of stateless settings is inherently conducive to constitutionally secular states. But it is also shown that unconditionally secular individuals are not necessary for a secular society and, by implication, state.     

Policies against human trafficking: the role of religion and political institutions

I investigate empirically the role of religion and political institutions in policies against human trafficking, using the new 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index. The dataset contains 175 countries. The results show that governments in countries with Christian majorities implement stricter anti-trafficking policies than governments in countries with Muslim majorities. The differences between countries with Christian and Muslim majorities are pronounced in dictatorships but less so in democracies. For example, the 3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index in a dictatorship with no Muslims was by 1.9 points higher than in an otherwise identical but purely Muslim dictatorship (on a scale from 3 to 15). The association between religion and the overall 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index is driven by protection and prevention policies. As compared to prosecution policies that mainly target the perpetrators of human trafficking, protection and prevention policies mainly protect the victims of human trafficking, i.e. predominantly women. The conclusions are consistent with other empirical findings regarding the association between religion, political institutions, and human development.     

Strategic participation and the median voter result

In a seminal paper on electoral equilibrium under majority rule, Ledyard (1984) demonstrates that strategic participation by voters results in an electoral equilibrium at the proposal that maximizes the utility of a randomly selected voter. Palfrey and Rosenthal (1985) limit the usefulness of this result by showing that strategic participation rates are miniscule in large electorates, and that the incentive to participate vanishes completely as the electorate grows without bound. The most reasonable modification of Ledyard’s approach that circumvents these criticisms is to allow for a negative cost of voting. We show that when voters can have even an arbitrarily small negative cost of voting, there is an electorate sufficiently large so that any proposal is defeated or tied by the median proposal. This observation raises questions about the existence of electoral equilibrium under strategic participation, and is relevant to the efficiency of elections.     

A model of state secularism

This paper posits a minimalist state interested in taxation and religion and explores the conditions conducive to the separation of state and religion. It shows that a ruler is secular and does not favour his religion as the state religion if he is absolutely tolerant, he faces a homogeneous, co-religionist society, and/or punishing violations of the state’s religious policy is prohibitively costly. Secular rulers are accordingly classified into three types: innately, coincidentally, and instrumentally secular. In the short run, individuals are equally well-off under different secular regimes. But among rulers, instrumentally secular rulers are relatively worse-off.     

From Buchanan to Khomeini

A bstract . Nobel Laureate James Buchanan and his colleagues and followers have applied the tools and methods of neoclassical economics to the study of politics , developing the theory of Public Choice , the economic study of non market decision-making. In an effort to subject this hypothetical system to empirical validation, it is confronted with the phenomena of Ayatollah Khomeini's "ideal" Islamic State as described in the leader of Iranian theocracy's writings and as developed in contemporary Iran. The prophet Muhammad recognized no separation of politics and religion , of church and state. Faith in Islam required faith not only in the oneness of God and Muhammad's prophethood but also in the prophet's religious, moral, legal and political commands. Khomeini's revolutionary heterodoxy views his theocratic despotism as establishing the rule of the "just jurists"—the upper echelons of the clergy—and makes them and property owners the beneficiaries. Thus it is not "class neutral" as Public Choice theory requires.     

Materialism,consumerism, and religion: A Buddhist vision for nonprofit marketing

This study delves into the interaction between materialism and religion and explores how consumers reconcile their religious precepts with materialism in today's consumerist society, with an ethnographic study of one of the world's largest Nichiren Buddhist organizations. The study reveals that instead of ideological ways of thinking that often resorts to rigid categorization, such as spiritualism at conflicts with materialism and liberalism opposing socialism, religion can transcend the spirit of materialism and the duality that characterizes most thinking. It can harmonize even the apparently contradictory entities of consumerism, materialism, and spiritualism and root itself in the reality of life, leading to an individual inner revolution and consequent social transformation.