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Only genuine ethics works

Dr. Laszlo Zsolnai
Laszlo Zsolnai
Director
Business Ethics Center
Corvinus University of Budapest
President
European SPES Institute, Leuven
Associate Member
Blackfriars Hall
University of Oxford
Corvinus logo
University of Oxford

Recent post

The paper by Wendelin Küpers, Paul Shrivastava, & Laszlo Zsolnai on “Building Practical Wisdom in Business, Organisation and Management through Transformative Civic Education (´Bildung´)” was published in Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion in October, 2024. http://DOI: https://doi.org/10.51327/SOWN9168 This paper revisits the concept of “Bildung” as a transformative approach to civic education, aimed at renewing… Read More »Building Practical Wisdom in Business, Organisation and Management through Transformative Civic Education (´Bildung´)

My paper on “How to Renew Business Ethics Education?” was published in Journal of Human Values in 2024 August. The paper argues that business ethics education is losing credibility worldwide. This is partly due to the experience that teaching ethics in business schools does not necessarily help future professionals to be more ethical in business.… Read More »How to Renew Business Ethics Education?

Laszlo Zsolnai gave a lecture on “The Awakened Brain in Business Education” in the “Awakened Brain & Awakened Campus” joint worksop of Columbia University and Corvinus University of Budapest on July 8, 2024 in Budapest. In his talk Zsolnai stated that the extreme materialistic value orientation of economics and business cannot help studentsto find deeper… Read More »The Awakened Brain in Business Education

The book “Twenty Years of European SPES“ edited by Laszlo Zsolnai was published in 2024. The book documents the history of European SPES from 2004 to 2024. It presents all the conferences that European SPES organized and the main publications and research findings it produced. The book also contains the most important future directions of… Read More »Twenty Years of European SPES (2004-2024)

Laszlo Zsolnai gave a talk on Conscious Business Models for the Spanish Conscious Capitalism Network on March 6, 2024. Zsolnai suggested three dedining characteristics of conscious bsuinesses, namely they give priority to intrinsic motivation over extrinsic one, are orientated toward the common good, and measure success in multi-dimensional, holistic terms. He presented the cases of… Read More »Conscious Business Models

Laszlo Zsolnai delivered a lecture on “The Business of Info-Communication Technologies” in the conference “Toward a systemic concept of attention for the attention economy, using Buddhist and Western ethics” organized by the Eindhoven University of Technology in February 6-7, 2024. In his lecture Zsolnai argued that info-communication technology companies represent a new form of corporate… Read More »The Attention Economy talk

Laszlo Zsolnai Publications

On December 4, 2023 we celebrated the 30th Anniverary of the Business Ethics Center of Corvinus University of Budapest. Presentations included  “Wise Governance for Sustainable Performance and Stakeholder Capitalism” by Mike Thompson (Anthesis, London) and “Interdisciplinary Business Ethics with Genuine Moral Commitment” by  Laszlo Zsolnai (Corvinus University of Budapest). The 30 Year Report of the… Read More »30 Years of the Business Ethics Center

On June 26, 2023 gave a presentation on Gift Giving in Business at the Management & Gift workshop of The Economy of Francesco program. He focused on two questions: (1) What should a leader be like and what decisions does the leader take to make a company generative? and (2) What is the spirituality that… Read More »Gift Giving in Business

Laszlo Zsolnai gave a keynote lecture on ” Art and Ecological Regeneration” at the Photography MA graduation of MOME on May 16, 2023. He argued against the market metaphysics that dominates business and economics as well as almost all spheres of social life today. He suggested to follow the idea of “beautiful act” by Immanuel… Read More »Art and Ecological Regeneration

Anikó Zsolnai and I published a book in Hungarian entitled “The Human Potential – Jozsef Zsolnai’s Pedagogy” (Az emberi potential. Zsolnai József pedagógiája. 2023. Savaria University Press.) The book documents the pedagogical concepcion of our father, Professor Jozsef Zsolnai (1935-2011) which aimed at the total development of values and capabilities of children and young adults.… Read More »The Human Potential

On March 23, 2023 Laszlo Zsolnai delivered a lecture on Spirituality and Economics for the Galileo Commission (London). The main point of the lecture was that the extension and reorientation of economics toward a spiritually informed science is required to consider humans as having both material and non-material needs and desires, to recognize that they… Read More »Galileo Commission Talk on Spirituality and Economics

The 2022 Annual Report of the Business Ethics Center covers activities, projects, and publications including The Awakened Campus Global Initiative with Columbia University, The Economy of Francesco Program of Pope Francis, and the Sustainability Conference at the Indian Institute of Management – Shillong. The 2022 Annual Report of the Busiess Ethics Center can be downloaded… Read More »Business Ethics Center 2022

Laszlo Zsolnai gave a keynote presentation entitled “Beyond Materialism and Reductionism“ in The Awakened Campus Global Initiative Conference in November 29-30, 2022 at Columbia University. Zsolnai argued that today’s mainstream social practices and the professions are based on strong materialist and reductionist assumptions. He showed that spiritually informed social practices can lead to better and… Read More »Beyond Materialism & Reductionism

Columbia University Spirituality, Mind, Body Institute, the European SPES Institute, Leuven, and the Business Ethics Center of Corvinus University of Budapest organize an international online conference on The Awakened Campus Global Initiative in November 29-30, 2022. The aim of the conference is to create a collaborative global network of higher education institutions to integrate spirituality… Read More »The Awakened Campus Global Initiative

I published a major paper on Wellbeing Oriented Organizations with Paul Shrivastava (Penn State University). We argue for connecting human flourishing with ecological regeneration and provide real world examples of innovative business and social organizations doing this. The paper is available online as open access publication at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/beer.12421

Sybille Persson, Paul Shrivastava and Laszlo Zsolnai: “Art and Aesthetics in Sustainability Education. Insights into Beautifying Management Education with François Jullien” RIPCO (Revue Internationale de Psychosociologie et de Gestion des Comportements Organisationnels) Vol XXVII, Issue 71, 2021 pp. 75-98. The paper questions the conceptual basis of art and aesthetics used in management education in order… Read More »Art and Aesthetics in Sustainability Education

Laszlo Zsolnai: “Ethics and Spirituality” in Yochanan Altman, Judi Neal and Wolfgang Mayrhofer (Eds.): Workplace Spirituality. Making a Difference. 2022. De Gruyter. pp. 75-83. The paper discusses the relationship between ethics and spirituality in business and management context. It shows that business ethics lacks a deeper existential-spiritual foundation which causes inadequate and ineffective functioning of… Read More »Ethics and Spirituality

The Annual Report 2021 summarizes the main projects and activities of the Busness Ethics Center of Corvinus University of Budapest. BEC-Newsletter-2021-

On November 19, 2021, Laszlo Zsolnai gave a lecture on “Spiritual Humanism – The Case for Frugal Consumption” in the “Corporate Social Responsibility and Good Governance” course of the Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, Los Angeles. In his lecture Zsolnai discussed the problems of the dominating overconsumption patterns of Western societies, namely welfare malaises,… Read More »Lecturing On Frugal Consumption in Los Angeles